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JUST PUBLISHED BY CAREY & HART: 

The Thugs, or Phansigars of* India. 

Comprising a History of the Rise and Progress of that ex- 
traordinary fraternity of Assassins, and a Description of 
the System which it pursues, and of the Measures which 
have been adopted by the Supreme Government of India for 
its Suppression. Compiled from the Original and Au- 
thentic Documents, published by W. H. Sleeman, of the 
Thug Police, in 2 vols. 

" This is a full and satisfactory history of the most extra- 
ordinary system of robbery and murder, ever disclosed to pub- 
lic view, since the world began. The disclosures are perfectly 
astonishing; the fanaticism by which the assassins were and 
are held together and actuated, is a most remarkable feature in 
the history of human error and crime, and the extent to which 
the operation of the Thugs have long been carried on in In- 
dia, will be a matter of surprise to every reader." — Weekly 
Messenger. 

" Thugs or Phansigars is the name of a secret association 
which has existed in India for upwards of two hundred years. 
Its avowed object is plunder. The members of the fraternity 
pursue their wretched avocation by ingratiating themselves 
into the confidence of travellers, accompanying them a dis- 
tance on their journey, and then strangling them by cords 
when a fit occasion offers. It is a part of their system never 
to allow those who fall in their way to escape, and their edu- 
cation is such, that the sacrifice of life, so far from exciting 
horror, is considered by them an act propitiatory to the deity 
whom they worship. The existence of a fraternity of assas- 
sins, in the daily commission of the most heinous crimes, 
without compunction, possessing forms of worship and the 
regulations of social life, presents a singular anomaly in the 
history of man, and evidences how much his character and 
views of things are influenced by early education." — Ledger. 



THE IDLER IN FRANCE. 

BY LADY BLESSINGTON. 
Author of "The Idler in Italy." 

2 vols. 18mo. 
1* 



MISS LESLIE'S COOKERY. 

DIRECTIONS FOR COOKING, IN ALL ITS BRANCHES: 

New Edition, much Enlarged and Improved, 

BY MISS LESLIE, 

Author of "Seventy-five Receipts." 

"-This is the most complete manual of cookery, which has 
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table with a variety of delicacies which heretofore have been 
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— Saturday News. 

" And this real housewife book, which ought to hold a mid- 
dle place between the parlor and the kitchen, is the work of 
Miss Leslie, who, delightful person, has so often enriched the 
elegant literature of our country. 

" This volume contains the art of cooking, preparing, and 
carving the whole list of eatables from the egg to the apple. 
The book is a perfect Vade Mecum for the housekeeper, and 
we should think would be in demand for the soundness of its 
culinary doctrine, and the simplicity of its precepts." — U. S. 
Gazette. 

" Miss Leslie has presented an excellent work to American 
housewives. Nothing has been incorporated but what will, by 
the generality of tastes, be considered good of its kind. The 
various matters are also arranged under distinct heads, forming 
a ready manual to turn to on all occasions." — Saturday News, 

" Every parent should insist on his daughter being able to 
quote page and line from Miss Leslie's book. On the 288th 
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and science of cookery open a new path to fame that can never 
be broken up or destroyed. We repeat that it should be a 
mother's duty to make it a daughter's study."— Saturday Mor- 
ning News. 



BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 

2 vols., printed on fine paper. 

" A very delightful volume for the admirers of classic litera- 
ture, times and men, is offered in Mr. Landor's new work, 
"Pericles and Aspasia." This production, which has just been 
issued in an elegant form by Messrs. Carey & Hart, is made 
up of imaginary letters, chiefly between Aspasia and her friend 
Cleone. They treat of the greatest men of a great era of 
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grace, depth and originality. It contains several ' orations of 
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and expression. Mr. Landor's book is at once useful and 
charming to the classic student." — National Gazette. 

"New Books. — We have this week to acknowledge our in- 
debtedness to our excellent friends, Messrs. Carey & Hart, for 
their splendid edition of Walter Savage Landor's " Pericles 
and Aspasia.' This celebrated work appears in a befitting 
garb. It is beautifully executed, and would do credit to the 
English press. It must be eagerly sought for by those lovers 
of literature in our country who have not seen the original 
edition, and whose curiosity has been excited by the extracts 
which have been published in the British reviews and maga- 
zines. ' Pericles and Aspasia' will be ranked among the clas- 
sics of the language, and, as one of these, entitled to a con- 
spicuous position in well selected libraries. Many thanks are 
due to the enterprising publishers by whom it has thus been 
laid before American readers." — New Yorker. 



Tambour's "Mew Theory of Steam Engines. 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

The 2d cd. of "Pambour on Locomotives." 

The whole complete in 1 vol. 8vo. 



MLW1M ©W WMSW,£JS,(Si31o 

BY THOMAS CAMPBELL. 
Author of " Pleasures of Hope." 



4 

LORD BACON'S WORKS. 

EDITED BY BASIL MONTAGUE, Esq. 

3 vols. 8vo. 



FAMILIAR LETTERS FROM LONDON, 

Ay the Author of the " American in Paris." 
2 vols. 12mo. 



WALKS AND WANDERINGS IN THE WORLD OF LITERATURE. 

By the Author of "Random Recollections of the Lords and 
Commons," " Bench and Bar," &c. 

2 volumes. 

Contents. — Nursery Poetry; Confessions of Peter Pug; The 
Rival, or the Autobiography of a Friend; Misadventure of a 
Lover; The Lakes of Scotland; The Soldier and his Wife; The 
Chieftain and his Vassal; Recollections of Sir Walter Scott; 
Old Maids; Bachelors; Marriage; Schoolboy Reminiscences of 
an Octogenarian; The Fishers of Stolfield; Travels in Moray- 
shire; Juvenile Recollections of an Old Man; The King's Birth- 
day; Hallow'een; School Vacations, Christmas Day; My School- 
boy Companions; Notes on Newspapers; The Village Lovers; 
The Magic Bridle; The Highland Courtship; Highland Wed- 
ding; The Kebbock Stone; The Celtic Lovers; The First and 
Last Lovers; The New Year. 

" These scenes and sketches are well written, and severnl 
are imbued with deep interest, and throughout afford agreeable 
light reading." — Pa. lnq. 

"Walks and Wanderings in the World of Literature," is the 
title of a new work in two volumes, just published by Messrs. 
Carey & Hart. It is by the author of 'Random Recollections,' 
' Sketches of London,' ' The Great Metropolis,' &c, a writer 
whose talents have gained him much popularity, both at home 
and abroad. The present work is filled with light and agree- 
able sketches, amusing essays, tales of love and passion, &c, 
all written with the author's accustomed tact and ability." — 
Chronicle. 



THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATE WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, 

Edited by His Sons. 

In 2 vols. 



GATHERINGS. 



A WORD TO WOMEN, 



LOVE OF THE WORLD, 



AND OTHER 



GATHERINGS 



BEING A 



COLLECTION OF SHORT PIECES. 



By CAROLINE FRY, 

AUTHOR OF " THE LISTENER," &c. &c. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

CAREY & HART, 

1840. 
L 



-\ 



& x 4 6 



19760 



T. K. & P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS, 
No. 1 Lodge Alley 









CONTENTS. 



PAGE 
ENGLISH PREJUDICES 1 

THE LOVE OF THE WORLD: — 

ITS CHARACTER 22 

ITS SINFULNESS ........ 30 

ITS DANGERS; .47 

CONCLUSION ........ 65 

HUMAN SYMPATHY 76 

ON THE USE OF COMMON THINGS: — 

ON THE USE OF SUPERFLUITIES . . . . .86 
ON THE USE OF HOSPITALITY 101 



VI DONTENTS. 

PAGE 

ON THE USE OF MUSIC 115 

ON THE USE OF DANCING 130 

ON THE USE OF HEARING 145 

ON THE USE OF ORDINANCES 160 

ON THE USE OF READING 169 

A WORD TO WOMEN 182 

AMEN 186 

FEMALE EDUCATION IN THE RESPECTABLE CLASSES: 

I.— WITH REFERENCE TO THE GENERAL POSITION OF FE- 
MALES IN SOCIETY 193 

II. — WITH REFERENCE TO THE PARTICULAR POSITION OF 

FEMALES IN THIS COUNTRY ..... 204 

III. — WITH REFERENCE TO. THE POSITION OF FEMALES IN 

THEIR DIFFERENT STATIONS OF LIFE . . . 214 

IV. — WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR NATURAL CONDITION 

AND ETERNAL DESTINY 226 

THE times: — 

I. — WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TIMES? .... 237 



CONTENTS. Vll 

PAGE 

II. — WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THE TIMES'? . . 243 

III. — WHAT HAVE WE TO DO WITH THE TIMES? . . 250 

IV.— HOW CAN WE MEND THE TIMES? .... 257 



SHORT PIECES. 



ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

When I was a child, through the whole of one 
winter— or it may be one summer, for that 
seems a more likely season for invasion — my 
nurse never put me to bed at night without 
telling me " the French were coming" before 
morning. Certainly my ideas were not very 
distinct as to what was meant by " the French 
coming;" but ideas I had, and they were full 
of horrors undefined and strange : something 
about great guns and martello towers — about 
running away from house and home, plums 
and playthings — literally running; for all the 
horses would be seized by the king to put 
soldiers upon. Then we were to burn bank- 
notes as useless, and carry off guineas, six- 
pences, and half-pence — of which last I made a 
2 



2 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

hoard for the purpose: and we must kill 
sheep and oxen for our own eating ; all the 
butchers would be wanted to kill the French. 
Strange that ideas so vague and wild should 
make an impression so lasting ! 

To this first terror of my early years must, 
doubtless, be attributed the dislike I have con- 
stantly manifested to every thing French. 
Since I have reached maturity, and had occa- 
sion to express my sentiments, and since it has 
appeared that instead of the French coming to 
England, the English must go to France, my 
childish impressions have shown themselves in 
characters that never fail to bring on me the 
charge of "prejudice — English prejudice." — 
When I have remonstrated with a mother for 
taking the children whose home is to be En- 
gland — who have been baptized to England's 
faith — whose husbands, whose children, are to 
be England's subjects — to bring them up in 
other tastes, in other habits, under the influ- 
ences of another faith, that they may learn 
dislike to English society and English people, 
to every thing, good or bad, that is peculiar to 
their country — unfitting them for their own 
destiny, by changing the somewhat dull and 
tame solidity of the English character for a 
frivolous vivacity which they will find nothing 






ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 3 

here to satisfy, — when I have asked if this be a 
parent's wisdom, I have been answered with 
" prejudice — English prejudice." And what can 
so strongly prove the force and permanency of 
early impressions, as the fact that I have re- 
tained these prejudices, not only against argu- 
ment and persuasion, but against the testimony 
of facts, such as I am going to relate ? 

Ben Thompson — I knew him by that fami- 
liar name while yet a boy — was his mother's 
only son; and she was a widow. I remember 
him, with a green-baize bag under his arm, 
crying every Monday as he went to school; not 
for any dislike he had to learning, but because 
he must leave his mother. I remember him, a 
few years later, the most blameless member of 
an academy at Turnham Green, where he was 
hooted and pelted by his school-fellows for being 
home-sick, the only fault that ever was charged 
upon him. And later still, I remember him 
as he was, when, his education finished, he 
returned to his paternal roof, the inheritance of 
his family for many generations, to which he 
was the heir. He was one of those — would 
that England still had millions such! — who, 
from infancy to manhood, had never guessed 
there could be any thing better than his own 



4 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

home — any happiness superior to what he 
found within its walls. It was not his mother 
only Ben had loved. He loved the paddock — 
something too proudly called the park— where 
first he trundled his hoop, or turned the hay 
with his first pitchfork. He loved the trees he 
had climbed to look into the forbidden bird's 
nest. He loved the church, where every Sun- 
day, in the same corner of the same pew, 
through many a happy year, he had never been 
missed by a congregation who looked upon the 
old squire's son as the greatest man in it, next 
the parson. And he loved, tenderly loved, the 
aged nurse, and the still older hind, a sort of 
pensioners upon the estate ; and many an hon- 
est tenant and laborer beside, who had drunk 
his health in strong ale at his christening, and 
taught their children to greet him with bows 
and courtesies whenever he came in their way 
— their future master, and, as they believed on 
trust, their benefactor. Benjamin had some 
hundred acres of good land; and if he had not 
much beside, there was enough for simple hos- 
pitality, such as had characterised his fathers ; 
or, if he wished for more, there was enough to 
qualify and set him forward in any profession 
he might choose. I do not say that Ben was 
without ambition. I often heard of wrongs 



ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 5 

that Ben had a mind to right, as soon as he was 
old enough to be a magistrate: except that it 
was five miles from home I should have fancied 
I saw his eyes glisten with desire to be mayor 
of the county town. That he ever dreamed of 
being member I can scarcely think; but Ben 
could speak good English, and loved a debate 
with the gardener on politics : and certain it is, 
his blue ribbon was always larger than any one's 
else at election-time. Ben was not born when 
the " French were coming ;" if he had no doubt 
he would have stood the foremost champion of 
his country in some yeoman corps. His fine, 
fair hair, and sensible blue eyes, and sanguine 
colouring, would have shown well under a 
helmet. 

Such was Benjamin Thompson when, want- 
ing yet a year to be of age, I saw him at his 
mother's house; fond of his home, fond of his 
country, fond of study, and of every healthful 
exercise of mind and body, and grateful to 
heaven, as I have reason to think, for the pos- 
session of every thing it had then entered into 
his mind to desire : open and honest as the day; 
and, if he was a little warm in argument, it was 
only when any one disputed the rights of the 
crown, the rights of the church, or the rights of 
the people — or denied that the constitution of 
2* 



6 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

England was the best in the world, its climate 
the finest in the world, its people the bravest in 
the world, and the county of D * * * the finest 

county in it, and H Park the best land in 

the county. 

Two years af(er, Ben came to my apartments 
in London, a little browner and older, the same 
handsome countenance and awkward gait, but 
with something of an eager restless air : more 
gay, but not so satisfied as it used to be. To 
my inquiries of his business in London, he 
replied that he was going abroad — he intended 
to travel for some years. He had already been 
one year on the continent, and had returned 

with the intention of settling at H Park j 

but he found the country so dull and tame after 
what he had been accustomed to — the climate 
was so unhealthy he had never felt alive since 
he returned. He found there was nothing so 
improving as travel ; nothing so much enlarged 
the mind, and cleared away prejudices, and 
wore off the rust of home. At present he had 
only seen enough of other countries to give him 
a desire for more; he intended to travel for 
some years before he settled himself to any 
pursuit. I asked him of his property. He 
replied that there was some difficulty: for want 
of a master's eye things were neglected, and the 



ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 7 

proceeds were not forthcoming; but he had cut 
down the old trees to make up present defi- 
ciencies, and had let the land off for the future. 
I asked him of his mother: for a moment, Ben 
Thompson looked as he used to do; he looked 
grave — I almost thought he looked sad. He 
faltered, I am sure, before he answered, '• That 
was the worst of it." His mother could not 
bear he should go abroad again. Her heart 
was almost broken when she heard that H — — 
Park was to be let. But what could he do? 
He could not drone away his best years in the 
society of a county town, and die of a fog. His 
mother was still healthy, and not very old; in 
a few years he should be tired of roving, and 
return to make her happy in her latter days. I 
wondered at this change; but the mystery was 
easily explained. Ben's mother had had advi- 
sers — as who has not? — they thought it was a 
pity such a handsome youth should not have a 
little more polish — should not see something of 
the world: he could never make any figure in 
life if he did not travel; he was too young at pre- 
sent to settle — much better send him abroad for a 
year, to acquire knowledge and enlarge his 
mind. Ben's mother believed; and in spite of 
his avowed disinclination, which all his friends 
declared to be the effect of prejudices which 



8 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

ought to be got over, he was persuaded to 
depart. He went — no matter where ; he saw — 
no matter what. Nature had given Ben what 
the phrenologists call a large organ of locality, 
easily awakened to the love of roving; he had 
taste and feeling capable of revelling in nature's 
magnificence, and he had good humor to 
please and be pleased with all he met. He 
increased his knowledge — he enlarged his mind 
— he retained no prejudices. Years have passed 
away since last I saw him; but Ben is not re- 
turned. The park-house is gone to decay — the 
lease of the land has been renewed — the squire's 
pew in the church remains empty — the widowed 
mother has no companion — the poor have no 
benefactor — England has lost one of her best 
supports. What Ben has gained I know not. 
Doubtless he has lost his prejudices. 

It is not many weeks since I took leave of 
Helen Maxwell — that was her name when I 
parted from her; what it is now is of little con- 
sequence — for I shall probably never see her 
more. She was the eldest daughter of my ear- 
liest friend — loved by me, for her sake, with 
more than common tenderness, for she had 
been many years in her grave. Helen was on 
the verge of womanhood when her mother died 
— about sixteen, I think; and, as she gave her 



ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 9 

parting blessing to this favorite child, she bade 
her look upon her younger sisters, then in 
infancy, as a charge from heaven, who would 
look -to her for guidance, and, wanting a 
mother's hand, would form themselves on her 
example. And this they did; she was mother 
and sister too. The father looked upon her as 
his pride and hope, his other children being 
yet so young. Every advantage moderate cir- 
cumstances could procure, was given to Helen 
in her education; but the greatest of all had 
been derived from the piety of her sainted 
mother, who, from her birth, had done all a 
mother could to bring up her child to God. 
And Helen seemed to answer to her cares. I 
thought her religious character as decided as 
could bernanifested in one who had been little 
tried — who had seen nothing of the world — to 
whom pleasure had sent no invitations, and inte- 
rest no bribes, to depart from the pious habits 
of her father's house; for Helen had never been 
out of it. The mother, when finishing her 
own course with joy, and ready to enter her 
eternal rest, looked gratefully and fearlessly upon 
this child; for she believed that the seed of 
truth and holiness had taken root in her bosom. 
She thanked heaven for this answer to her 
prayers, and died in peace. Every thing in 



10 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

Helen's conduct seemed to give sanction to the 
mother's hope. She was lovely as the fresh 
flower of the morning before the eye of day has 
opened upon it; and, if a too quick susceptibi- 
lity of impression from external things might 
be already perceived, it appeared but as a 
grace, yielding compliance to every one, and 
deriving pleasure from every thing. Allowed 
by her father to follow her own wishes, I never 
heard that Helen entered into any of those 
pursuits, or appeared in any of those places, 
her pious mother had taught her to avoid; 
neither that she discontinued the religious ser- 
vices and habits which are supposed to mark a 
mind determined in its choice of good or evil, 
of God or mammon. 

The time came when Helen's principles were 
to be put to a more serious trial; this, too, they 
stood. I do not think she was more than nine- 
teen when she received proposals of marriage 
from a gentleman, the son of her father's friend. 
He was, in every way, what is called a desi- 
rable match; there was no obstacle but that 
which existed in Helen's mind — or, I would 
rather say, in her conscience — for I believed 
she loved him as well as one could do, who was 
too young and too inexperienced to know whe- 
ther she loved or not. At all events, to use 



ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 11 

her own expression, "she could have loved" 
him; but, though of upright character, he had 
shown no interest in religion — no love to God 
— no detachment from the world and self. 
Helen knew what her mother would have 
wished; she thought she knew what heaven 
would approve; she said, "How can two walk 
together except they be agreed?" and she 
refused the match. 

It was not more than a year after this, that, 
making my usual visit to Mr. Maxwell, I was 
informed by him that Helen had an invitation 
to pass six months in Paris with her aunt; and 
great as was the sacrifice to himself, and the loss 
to his other children, to whom Helen was every 
thing, he could not be so selfishly unjust as to 
refuse it. Besides the pleasure which every 
young mind must derive from scenes so new 
and interesting, great advantages were pro- 
mised for the improvement of her talents; and 
though the dear girl had hesitated a little on 
account of depriving her sisters of her superin- 
tendence, she felt satisfied that they would ulti- 
mately benefit by her improvement. It was in 
vain I used the freedom of the mother's friend 
to attempt to dissuade him from his purpose; 
in vain I told of the unhealthful excitements — 
of pernicious examples — of a seducing faith. 



12 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

"Prejudice — all English prejudice. " He was 
sure of those to whom he committed her: good 
principle was equally safe every where, and he 
was sure of Helen's. 

Helen Maxwell went to Paris. Three months 
more than the six had elapsed when I received 
a pressing note from her father to see him at 
his house. Knowing that Helen had been some 
time expected, I hoped it was on occasion of 
her arrival. The expression of the old man's 
countenance when I entered his apartment was 
intensely painful ; a pencil might, but language 
cannot paint it. Tears, such as manhood does 
not often shed, stood upon his wrinkled cheek 
while he told me that Helen had indeed re- 
turned, but only to ask him to part from her 
for ever. At these words the little children 
ceased their play, and drew nearer to their father, 
as if to borrow the expression of his sadness. 
Helen was to be married. Helen had attached 
herself to one abroad who loved her, so she said, 
as Englishmen do not love. True, she must 
leave her country; but she had formed more 
friendships in nine months abroad than ever she 
had formed in all her life in England: she 
minded to leave nothing but her father — and 
all daughters, when they marry, leave their 
fathers. True, the man she loved was of a 



ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 13 

different faith; but Helen had learned, now 
that she had seen more of life, that there are 
more ways than one of serving God — that small 
differences of opinion are of no consequence — 
that, if the heart be right, it matters not to 
what church a man belongs; since she had 
become familiar with the practices of the Ro- 
mish Church she did not see so much objection 
to them. She hoped her lover was a pious 
man; or, if not, with the blessing of God upon 
her influence, she hoped he would become so, 
and they might walk together towards heaven, 
though by a different route. In short, Helen 
waited only her father's consent, which, she 
said, could be withheld only at the cost of her 
happiness, since her affections were fixed un- 
changeably. The father believed it and con- 
sented; but never from that day has sorrow 
departed from his countenance — never since has 
he named her without a tear. Of all she asked 
at parting, one thing only he refused. She 
asked to have her sisters, each in turn, to finish 
their education under her care; he answered, 
"No: never should another girl of his be sent 
into a foreign land." Helen Maxwell is mar- 
ried. She has left her father; she has left the 
family committed by her mother to her guid- 
ance; she has left the altar where that sainted 
3 



14 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

mother devoted her in prayer to God; per- 
haps, before this, she may have left her faith: 
doubtless she has left her prejudices. 

I one day asked a young minister, who had 
recently been inducted to a living in the coun- 
try, by what authority from his divine Master 
he gave up his parochial duties to another, and 
prepared to pass the summer months on the 
continent. He answered me that there was 
quite as much to do on the continent as in 
England. He did not intend to be idle, or to 
travel merely for his own gratification. He 
had prepared himself — pointing to a trunk 
already packed with Bibles, Tracts, Homilies, 
&c. — to pursue his ministerial work wherever 
he might go, in proclaiming the Gospel of peace, 
and distributing the word of life. I remarked 
that being an ordained minister of the English 
Church, and having taken upon himself the 
especial charge of a portion of her community, 
as their appointed minister, I did not perceive 
how he could have any ministerial duties to 
perform in a foreign land, plainly incompatible 
with the charge committed to him at home. 
He told me this was a mistake — a prejudice. 
The souls of men in one place were of as much 
value as in another; the ministry of God's ser- 
vants was every where. It was convenient for 



ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 15 

him to travel; and he did not feel that he 
could be better employed than in carrying the 
light of truth to the benighted continent. He 
should leave his parish in good hands, and, 
with God's blessing on his labors for others, 
return improved himself in knowledge of man- 
kind — in experience of the ways of the king- 
dom of darkness, and the devices of the Evil 
One under a diversified character of iniquity. 
His experience would be gain to his parish- 
ioners, as well as to himself. Particularly, he 
desired to see and to contend with Popery in 
the focus of her abominations, that he might 
verify her deeds, and testify of her corruptions. 
I answered not again; for I felt it unavailing. 
Mr. Peters was a young man of fortune, of 
an honorable family, and considerable attain- 
ments. He had entered the church because 
he loved it, and devoted himself to the ministry 
of Christ, because he loved his service. His 
piety was beyond question, and his powers of 
usefulness above the common level. During 
the short period he had served his parish -church, 
the congregation had considerably increased; 
and so pleasing seemed the promise of his min- 
istry, to those best able to appreciate it, that 
his intended absence was heard of with regret. 
I happened to visit that parish whilst Mr. 



16 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

Peters was away, and could not but be struck 
with the great alteration in the appearance of 
the church. A pious but not very able man 
supplied the place of curate; and, with a tone 
peculiarly disconsolate and discouraged, went 
through the service to an empty church, of 
which the large green pew in the centre, ap- 
propriated to the clergyman's family, stood 
conspicuous in emptiness. Of the parishioners 
whom I inquired after, some had gone to one 
place of worship, some to another, and more 
had stayed at home; for the rector, as they told 
me, was away. 

How long Mr. Peters stayed away I do not 
know — it was no business of mine; neither do 
I know where he went to, or what he did 
abroad. I met him after his return at a large 
dinner-party, succeeding some public meeting; 
and my attention was deeply rivetted to a con- 
versation — almost, I may say, a controversy — 
maintained by my friend alone, against the 
prevalent feeling of the company, in extenua- 
tion of the errors and practices of the Romish 
Church. Of some things I heard him say they 
were mere ceremonies — very little important, 
when you come to witness what they are, apart 
from the coloring which distance and exag- 
geration give; of other things, that they were 



ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 17 

not so essentially erroneous as he had supposed, 
before he had frequent opportunities of inter- 
course with the members of that church. There 
was more made, he thought, of the differences 
between their faith and ours than need be, if 
people would put aside their prejudices, and 
see things for themselves. Doubtless there were 
errors — many things to be lamented; but it 
was astonishing how intimacy reconciled those 
together who were used to set themselves in 
array against each other, and tended to beget 
liberality of sentiment, and brotherly affection. 
Be it not supposed my friend had this thread 
of argument to himself unbroken. His oppo- 
nents were many; but to every charge they 
brought against the apostate church, he had 
something ameliorating to produce. For every 
exposure of her corruptions, he had an if or 
but of doubtfulness or explanation; even for 
the desecration of her Sabbaths he had a softer 
coloring — they kept them after their own 
manner — they understood the institution diffe- 
rently, and meant no dishonor when they 
devoted them to pleasure. He thought the 
frequent residence of our people abroad, would 
greatly tend to reduce the acrimony that was 
between the churches, and, by removing pre- 
judices on both sides, bring them into more 
3* 



18 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

Christian communion. I thought so too. I 
should have found reason to think it now, if I 
never had before. The reverend apologist was 
a gentle and benevolent spirit, too readily sus- 
ceptible, perhaps, of the charms of social inter- 
course — too easily blinded to what is sinful be- 
fore God by what is kind and acceptable to 
man: as the eye looks upon darkness till it sees 
it not dark, and the taste is accustomed to bit- 
terness till it finds no disrelish in it, so this 
amiable and pious young man had looked upon 
error till it ceased to disgust him, and upon sin 
till it ceased to seem sinful. Mr. Peters might 
have carried light to the benighted — he might 
have distributed knowledge to the ignorant — 
this I know not; but I know, for I have had 
frequent communications with him since, that 
he has brought back diminished attachment to 
his own church — diminished jealousy for the 
honor of the divine word — diminished earnest- 
ness in maintaining the peculiar tenets of Pro- 
testanism: of course, he has brought back no 
'prejudices. 

Perhaps I may be thought too serious. One 
story more, and I have done. A lady came 
some years ago to my apartment, introduced by 
a friend, to consult me upon the state of her 






ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 19 

worldly prospects, and be advised of the like- 
liest method to amend them. She was a re- 
markably plain little woman, upon the verge, 
as I guessed, of sixty : but with a good nature, 
and simplicity in her countenance that rendered 
it not unpleasing. She wore a close, untrim- 
med bonnet, which, for any look of fashion or 
newness that was upon it, might have been her 
grandmother's; the rest of her dress was re- 
markably plain and common, and something 
worn : her whole manner and appearance below 
that of polished life, though free from any 
thing that could rightly be called vulgarity. In 
the statement of her pretensions, she was very 
humble and modest. She had been engaged in 
tuition it seemed, and in some moderate and 
pious families had been considerably valued ; 
but not being quite polished enough, or accom- 
plished enough, or learned enough for this 
wonderful age, her plain trustworthiness had 
become depreciated in the market, and could 
with difficulty be disposed of at any price. In 
this dilemma she consulted me upon the advisa- 
bility of going to Paris to improve herself. Of 
course she was unaware of my early prejudices. 
She must soon have perceived them when, with 
most anti-parisian plainness, I made mention of 
her years— of the little time that remained to 



20 ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 

make provision for the flesh; that her difficul- 
ties, if increasing with age, must also be short- 
ening — that the little property she had might 
better be applied to the diminished necessities 
of her diminished years, than expended in spe- 
culations upon future gains. In short — for I 
have never concealed my prejudices — I told her 
I had seen many injured by going to Paris, but 
few improved by it — that she would deprive 
herself of religious comforts and advantages, so 
necessary to her age and state of mind ; and I 
doubted if what she would gain would be any 
recommendation to serious families on her re- 
turn. 

She thanked me, and left me, and I thought 
no more of her till, two years after, I was sit- 
ting in the same chair, in the same apartment — 
how some people stand still and let the world 
go by them ! — when a lady was shown in! It 
was even Dorothy; but what a change! Never 
shall I forget the sight of her. Flaxen curls, 
of which each one was as large as a penny roll, 
were ranged in triple rows on either side her 
face ; a smart silk hat, of many colours, was so 
obliquely placed as to shadow one' half only. 
Her wizen face had acquired a coloring which 
I did not take to be the flush of youth. The 
rest was in keeping : bracelets, and chains, and 



ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 21 

ruffles, and flounces, had swelled out her person 
to ample proportions with its height. Whilst 
I sat in blank amaze, " I am come," said Do- 
rothy, with a fantastic and tripping tone, " to 
show you that I am not injured by going to 
Paris." I looked intently in her face — I am 
almost afraid I laughed; but Dorothy, nothing 
abashed by vulgar gaze, went on to assure me 
nothing could be so false as had been my pre- 
judices. There was a great deal more spiritu- 
ality among the religious people in France than 
in England. She had enjoyed much greater 
privileges in the society there than ever she had 
here. They were more united, more liberal, 
more separated from the world. Never had she 
felt so much of the Spirit's influence as in that 
delightful Paris. Poor Dorothy ! I did not ask 
after her acquirements, her old bonnet, or her 
modesty: I supposed they had gone with her 
prejudices/ 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 



LOVE NOT THE WORLD, NEITHER THE THINGS OF THE WORLD. — IF 
ANY MAN LOVE THE WORLD, THE LOVE OF THE FATHER IS NOT 
IN HIM. 

ITS CHARACTER. 

The incompatibility of the love of the world 
with the love of God; of the course of the 
world's passions, pride, and interest, with the 
devotion of a Christian life, and the detachment 
required of the believer, has been always a 
subject of offence to the unbelieving ; a spot 
upon God's children, more intolerable and more 
unreasonable to the natural mind, than any pecu- 
liarity in their doctrines. And though the re- 
nunciation of the world is the earliest vow made 
for the infant, on its admission to the church, 
renewed whenever he becomes a child of God 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 23 

by adoption of the Spirit, it is too often that 
which the believer latest understands, and 
most reluctantly fulfils. Is it not that on 
which throughout, the mind of God and 
man are most openly at variance ? In ques- 
tions of morality, the conscience at least of man 
is with the law of God, however his maxims 
and fashions are at variance. But the unrigh- 
teous mammon of this fallen world is so conso- 
nant to the desires of its fallen inhabitant, he 
finds it hard to understand why he is called 
upon to renounce it. Those good things which, 
before sin entered, were good in every sense, 
cursed in our curse, seem equally well suited 
to our changed condition; and really are so: 
the Scripture in this sense calls them good: — 
" Thou in thy life-time hadst thy good things.'' 
It is only when the heart is regenerate, and 
man is called out of the world that lieth in 
wickedness, to be the servant of God, that 
the world's most valued possessions and most 
esteemed endowments, are no longer suited to 
his condition, and must not be his wages, and 
cannot be his service. " Ye cannot serve God 
and mammon." Surely there is a strange sort 
of covetousness clinging about the hearts of 
God's believing people, that they will have 
both masters, and take wages of them both, 



24 THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 

and have the wealth and honor of this world 
added to the eternal riches of the next. u The 
glory which thou hast given me, have I given 
unto them." And they are still coveting the 
miserly gains of this unprofitable world ! 

"Be content with such things as ye have."* 
The things that we have; this may be very 
little: in another place we are told to be con- 
tent with food and raiment, the barest neces- 
saries. Observe, it is not said, " Such things 
as ye can get" — when ye have entered into 
competition for all those things that the nations 
of the world seek after, and schemed, and 
toiled, and speculated, be satisfied with the 
utmost you can gather in the universal scram- 
ble. I am afraid this would be a convenient 
reading to many of us, but it is not the word of 
revelation. Covetousness is here put in oppo- 
sition to contentment: unsatisfied desire is not 
contented; the very desire of the heart, there- 
fore, is to be repressed: and the conversation, 
all that talking and acting in the common in- 
tercourse of life, which betrays to the keen eye 
of unbelief, the undiminished avidity with which 
the followers of Jesus pursue the gains of earth, 
and aspire after its possessions. Is our con- 
versation thus characterised, even among our- 

* Heb. xiii. 5. 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 25 

selves ? When they that fear the Lord speak 
one to another, does he hearken to no covetous, 
no ambitious, no aspiring words ? I think I 
have seen a Christian company, surprised at a 
profession of indifference to wealth, a doubt ex- 
pressed of its desirableness to the child of 
God. I do not think I ever saw any com- 
pany surprised at the expression of a desire 
for more, or the intimation that what we 
have is not enough for our contentment. So 
adverse to the declared mind of God is the 
established estimate of things, and so hard the 
language of the world to be unlearned, even by 
those, who profess to have separated themselves 
from it. 

The prophet Ezekiel has an awful passage. 
It was spoken of the typical Israel first, but 
may it have no antitype in the Church of 
Christ ? " They come unto thee as the people 
cometh, and J sit before thee as my people, and 
they hear thy words, but they will not do 
them ; for with their mouth they show much 
love, but their heart goeth after their covetous- 
ness.""* Remark the Gospel parallel — "He 
also that received seed among the thorns, is he 
that heareth the word, and the cares of his 
world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke 

* Ezekiel, xxxiii, 31. 
4 



26 THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 

the word, and he becometh unfruitful." The 
holy seer might well have fixed his inspired 
vision on our country in the present moment, 
when he received that message from the Lord. 
The sweet sounds of melody seem scarcely 
more attractive now to the ear of taste, than 
the pleasant voice of the preacher of righteous- 
ness. The great, the rich, the learned and the 
busy, now throng the churches that used to be 
abandoned to the poor and the unemployed. 
They profess to like, and seem to feel the 
truth ; the more faithful the minister, the more 
popular he becomes ; and the more forcibly his 
words condemn the world, the more sure he is 
to gain its favorable hearing. " They come," 
" they sit," they come again : what distin- 
guishes them from the people from whom they 
would heretofore have parted at the gate, 
ashamed to be numbered among the hearers of 
the Gospel ? He whose omniscient eye never 
fails to see where his own good seed is falling, 
has marked the distinction, and he has called it 
covetousness. "They hear, but will not do: 
for their hearts are gone after their covetous- 
ness." " When they have heard, they go forth, 
and are choked with cares, and riches, and 
pleasures of this life," choked, not with the 
fordid accumulation only of ill-gotten wealth, 



THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 27 

but with the care of increasing it, and the pride 
of possessing it, and the pleasures to be derived 
from its expenditure. 

"From the least unto the greatest, every 
one is given to covetousness," saith the pro- 
phet Jeremiah twice, in the name of the Lord. 
The love of this world's good is not confined to 
the rich ; to them who having already large 
possessions, might be supposed to have enough : 
of whom we are sufficiently quick to wonder 
that they are not satisfied, though it would be 
very difficult to define the point at which they 
should be so. Nay, there is no such point. If 
man may covet at all, he may covet on ; for no 
portion of this world's good, nor all of it, will 
be enough for the immortal spirit. Can space 
be filled with less than its own dimensions ? 
Can the soul's appetite be stayed by feeding 
upon air, that it should not greedily cry out for 
more ? To be satisfied with the possessions of 
this life, is a scheme of man's devising, and no 
wonder he has not been able to discover how 
much of it will do. It is God's way that he be 
satisfied without them. " Such things as ye 
have." "Filled with all the fulness of God." 
So full, the world must lay its treasures at the 
gate; within the heart there will be found no 
place for them. This can be, and it should be. 



28 THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 

When God requires of his people to renounce 
the world, refuse its wages, and counts its gold 
for dross, he does not mean to consign his family 
to penury, and leave them the low and destitute 
of the earth. "Blessed are they that hunger 
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be 
filled." "Buy of me gold tried in the fire, that 
thou mayest be rich, and white raiment, that 
thou mayest be clothed." "Wine and milk, 
without money and without price." " Or things 
present, or things to come, all are yours, for ye 
are Christ's, and Christ is God's." This, and 
nothing less than this, God considers to be 
enough for them that love him. It is they 
who should be pulling down barns, and build- 
ing greater, for the wealth is only limited by 
their capacity to receive it : but instead of this 
enlargement of the heart towards God, to make 
more room for the riches of his grace, poor 
Christians waste the little compass of their af- 
fections upon the chaff of earth, and wonder 
that their spirits grow so lean, and their souls 
remain so hungry, upon the promise of so much 
abundance. Methinks that " certain rich man" 
was wiser than some of us. We have goods 
laid up for all eternity, with the immutable 
word for our security; but our souls must take 
no ease. To-day we want more, for to-morrow 



THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 29 

we must have an increase, the next day more 
to that. " The children of this world are wiser 
in their generation than the children of light:" 
these last are rich enough, and do not think so. 
Those cannot have enough, and feel they have 
not, though they know not why. Each one 
wonders that the man who has more than he 
has, is not satisfied, until he gets the same, and 
proves it insufficient, and then it is the next, 
and the next step that will do; but it never 
does. Thus it is said to be the covetous rather 
than the rich, that the world blesseth, or ac- 
counts blessed ; they whose hope of being satis- 
fied is kept alive by the perpetual accumulation 
of their store, a perpetual filling up of the ever- 
growing void. 

Men talk of motives for the desire of wealth, 
or they make distinctions between one sort of 
earthliness and another. The love of money is 
very mean, but wealth leads to power, and the 
love of power is noble. Avarice is contemptible, 
the world agrees to that; but our station in life, 
our consequence in society, our independence 
among men, all these require money, and these 
are generous aims, which the world's judgment 
never calls in question. Our Lord makes no 
such reservations or distinctions. " Thou shalt 

not covet." " Seekest thou great things for thy- 
4 * 



30 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

self? Seek them not." " Whosoever will be 
chief among you, let him be your servant." 
" Sit thou down on the lowest seat." " I am 
among you as he that serveth." " The servant 
is not greater than his Lord." " The pride of 
thy heart hath deceived thee; thou that dwell- 
est in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is 
high."* " Though thou shouldst make thy nest 
higher than the eagle's, I will bring thee down 
from thence, saith the Lord."t But we trench 
upon our second consideration, the sinfulness of 
all covetous desires of the flesh. 



ITS SINFULNESS. 

The principle of sin, as I conceive, is not 
opposition to the law of God; if by that we 
understand his revealed will, but opposition to 
his character, which is the immutable rule of 
right and wrong. Sin would be sin, though 
the law had not been given, and God had made 
no discovery of his will. But the develop- 
ment of sin into transgression, is by opposition 
to the law, or will of God in any wise made 
known. " I had not known sin but by the 
law." I do not understand the apostle to 

* Obadiah, iii, 4. t Jeremiah, xlix, 16. 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 31 

mean that he had not had sin, but that he had 
not perceived it to be so. Lust was in his 
heart, and lust was sin, before the Lord said, 
" Thou shalt not covet." But by the law is 
the knowledge of sin. It was in Paul dead, as 
he expresses it, giving to himself no sign of its 
existence ; but when the law came, it revived, 
it manifested itself in opposition to it, and grew 
into actual transgression. Such I understand 
to be the meaning of the passage; and I no- 
tice it here, because to the obdurate heart of 
man the law of God seems an arbitrary thing, 
making evil what would otherwise have been 
harmless, and attaching to it suffering that 
need not have ensued; thus resolving all sin 
into disobedience, and its punishment into an 
arbitrary exercise of power. If it were so, it 
would become the creature to put his hand 
upon his mouth, and say, 'Even so, Lord, 
since so it seemeth good to thee. If ambition 
were a harmless thing, and the Maker of all 
things had forbidden it, it would be our duty 
and our wisdom to abstain. But it is not so. 
Let those who go on in earthliness, because 
they deny the divine authority of Scripture, 
who bury themselves and all their faculties in 
earth, and lose their souls in sense, because 
they reject the revelation that requires them to 



32 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

do otherwise, let them be assured this will not 
change the case. Earthliness is sin, and sin is 
misery, whether you receive the word of God 
or not. Your unbelief will add another sin, 
but will not change the character of this, nor 
exempt you from its consequences. If this 
warning should seem misplaced, as being ap- 
plicable only to the avowed sceptic, consider a 
little. There are more unbelievers than those 
who say the Bible is a fiction. There are those 
who say, " I see no harm in such things, and 
therefore it is not my duty to forego them." 
" I make no profession, and therefore it is not 
incumbent on me to renounce the world." 
" Certainly with your views, you cannot desire 
wealth, or struggle for aggrandisement, but I 
do not think there is any sin in these pursuits." 
Do not see — do not think ! " Anoint your 
eyes with eye-salve that ye may see," for as 
sure as you are mistaken, with the testimony 
of God before you, your ignorance and unbe- 
lief will no otherwise change the case, than as 
they will be added to your other sins. Go to 
any earthly tribunal with this argument, and 
when you are called upon to answer for some 
transgression of the laws, say to your judges, 
" I have indeed heard of such law, but I saw no 
reason for it: I could not perceive any harm in 



THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 33 

what is prohibited, and therefore did not believe 
the penalty was intended." Would you expect 
to be acquitted on such a plea? 

We do not undertake to show the reasoners 
of this world the sinfulness of this or any other 
sin: it is what the unregenerate spirit never 
sees, or can see. But we say to them, you 
admit the Bible to be the word of God; in it 
all covetous desires are forbidden, and declared 
to be abhorrent to the Lord. What God for- 
bids is sin. This is incontrovertible, because it 
involves an act of disobedience to the supreme 
authority, which is itself a sin, whether or not 
we can perceive the sinfulness of the thing 
forbidden. So much as this cannot be denied 
by any one who admits the truth of revelation. 
But our most gracious Father does not thus 
govern his believing people: it is not thus his 
holy word is read with the light of redeeming 
love upon it "Henceforth I call you not 
servants, for the servant knoweth not what his 
Lord doeth. But I have called you friends, 
for all that I have heard of my Father, I have 
made known unto you." God has not laid on 
us onerous commands of which it is impossible 
for us to perceive the moral fitness, or pro- 
scribed any thing as sin, of which his grace will 
not enable us to feel the sinfulness. It was 



34 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

not with ignorant submission David read, when 
he exclaimed, "Lord, how I love thy law:" 
nor Solomon, when he saw that the paths of hea- 
venly wisdom, were ways of pleasantness and 
peace. Our gracious God invites us through 
all his word, to understand and know the 
beauty of holiness and the misery of sin. It is 
a lesson slowly learned indeed, and never learn- 
ed at all by unassisted nature, in whose per- 
verted vision holiness has no beauty, that we 
should desire it, and sin has no deformity that 
we should loath it. I am afraid it is a lesson, 
in respect of which we, as professing Christians, 
are very, very guilty. I am not sure if there 
is not in onr slowness to it some coloring of 
that self-righteous principle so deeply rooted 
in our nature ; better pleased to make a sacri- 
fice to duty, than to accept the duty as a privi- 
lege; more gratified to give up our own will to 
God, than to have it brought into conformity 
with his. To forego our pleasure is doing 
something, to have it changed by grace is doing 
nothing. The former is the service with which 
a Christian course most commonly begins, but 
I do not think we should be content to rest 
there. There will be no sacrifice of our will in 
heaven, where our perfect happiness will be 
perfect conformity to the mind of God. I do 






THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 35 

not say this can be attained on earth, for then 
would much of the requirement of the Gospel 
become void, and many Christian graces cease; 
but surely we are to go on unto perfection: to 
labor to be conformed to the likeness of our 
blessed Lord, not in his obedience only, but in 
the judgment of his mind, and the feelings of 
his heart. Is he not made unto us wisdom and 
sanctification, as well as righteousness and 
redemption? 

I say, then, that in reference to the subject 
before us, Christians do not sufficiently consider 
the sinfulness of this sin, nor the wisdom of 
God in forbidding to us al] carnal and covetous 
desires. Instead of accepting as a privilege 
their dismissal from the world's contentions, 
and independence of its brief possessions, they 
feel it a sacrifice almost too much to ask : they 
believe that temporal things are not to be 
desired ; but they do not feel that they are not 
desirable, or find any other sin in the pursuit, 
than that of disobedience to a known command. 
Would that any argument of ours might, by the 
Spirit's help, throw light upon this truth, and 
show to the family of God the exceeding sin- 
fulness of this sin, in the total want of confor- 
mity to the mind of God, and the example of 
Jesus Christ. 



36 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

Is there no connection in our Lord's dis- 
course, when, from the warning to his disciples 
against covetousness and all anxious occupation 
with the things of this life, as men prepared for 
change, he passes to the mention of his own 
bitter portion, the baptism he had to be bap- 
tised with, and thence exclaims, " Suppose ye 
that I am come to send peace on earth ?"* May 
we not think that in thus continuing his dis- 
course, he meant to convince his disciples of 
the unreasonableness of the desires he had for- 
bidden, and the nnsuitableness to them of what 
the nations of the world seek after? The 
world in which he had only lived to suffer, 
could be to them no object worth a care : the 
places where he was the despised of all, the 
servant of servants, and a thing of nought, could 
never be the sphere of their greatness and their 
pride. And when he indignantly exclaimed — 
"Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the 
sky, and of the earth, but how is it that ye do 
not discern the time" — did he not intimate 
that the time in which the world was left to the 
contention of the w T icked one, while he with- 
drew to receive the kingdom from his Father, 
was not the time for his servants to make peace 
with it, to covet its treasures, and accept of its 

* Luke, xii. 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 37 

rewards. Whether or not there is such a 
meaning in the passage, it conveys to his fol- 
lowers a most deserved reproach ; and I think 
no small measure of the sinfulness of earthly 
ambition, is the tacit disavowal of our absent 
Lord, in the desire manifested to take office, as 
it were, under the government of his enemies. 
This is accounted base in human politics: the 
subject who in his sovereign's absence takes 
wealth and honors from a rebellious people, 
and a usurping government, is held dishon- 
ored when his king returns, and must abide 
his vengeance, or sue out a pardon. At pre- 
sent the kingdoms of this world are not the 
kingdoms of our Lord : how can its power and 
possessions be the portion of his people ? " It 
is enough for the servant that he be as his 
Lord."* Jesus bequeathed nothing of this 
world to his church except its hatred. He did 
not say to his disciples when he left them, All 
this is mine, go in, and take possession in my 
name. I make you my vicegerents in my 
absence. Get wealth, that you may spend it 
in my service ; get power, that you may execute 
my laws ; and honors, for the glory of my name. 
His language was, "Behold, I send you as sheep 
among wolves." "Take neither scrip nor staff." 

* John xv. 



38 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

" Remember the thing that I said unto you; the 
servant is not greater than his lord." " As my 
Father hath sent me, even so send I you." 
Lowly Master ! methinks there should be some 
codicil to thy last will and testament, to give 
thy people a right to what they so much covet. 
When the prince of this world offered it all 
to thee, he knew it was thine, but would have 
tempted thee to take possession before thy time 
was come. He brings the same temptation to 
thy people, and, alas ! they take the bait. He 
persuades them that the times are changed since 
thou wert here, and that they may venture now 
to take possession. A christianized world should 
be possessed and ruled by a believing people : 
thy separated ones must contend for rights, and 
accumulate property, and assist in legislation. 
I know not who has brought this message 
down, if it be not indeed the Father of lies ; 
for still the written word remains the same, 
u My kingdom is not of this world, else would 
my servants fight." (i Strangers and pilgrims 
upon earth." "Not mindful of that country 
from whence they came out." u Crucified to the 
world ;" " buried with him." And the prayer 
remains the same, with which Jesus committed 
all that should believe in him to his Father's 
keeping, until he should return and take them 



THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 39 

to himself. Often as the believing soul has 
been satisfied to fulness, in the reading of that 
prayer, there was never found in it a request or 
a promise of any thing in this life, but a parti- 
cipation of his own portion in it, — a share in his 
holy separation from it. Jesus did not ask that 
his disciples might have the world, nor that the 
world might be made fit for them to have. 
"They are not of the world." "Keep them 
from the evil of it." Is it no sin, is it possible 
that it should be thought and felt no shame to 
covet what our Master never gave or promised 
to his servants, and would not ask for them of 
his Father when he left them ? 

The love of earth is as contrary to our own 
prayers, as it is to our Lord's ; in this again is 
its sinfulness apparent. We do not, we dare not 
pray for riches. " Day by day our daily bread." 
" Make all your requests known unto God." 
" Ask whatsoever ye will." U Your Father 
knoweth what things ye have need of." I am 
sure that no one has gone before the throne 
where Jesus intercedes, to say, Give me the 
wealth of this world for the sake of Him, who 
for my sake became poor, that I through his 
poverty might be rich. If ever that blessed Sa- 
viour has beheld, under covert of some other 
word, that base desire hidden, he must have puri- 



40 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

fied the petition with his blood, and perfumed it 
with. the incense of his merits, before he could 
present it to the Father. Indirectly, we pray 
continually against it. We pray against tempta- 
tion — and the Scripture says: " They that will 
be rich, fall into temptation and a snare." We 
pray against sorrow, and the Scripture says, 
"which some having coveted after, have erred 
from the faith, and pierced themselves through 
with many sorrows." We pray against sin, and 
it is written, " The love of money is the root of 
all evil." Taking the whole word of God in view, 
I believe that every Christian, every day of his 
existence, does virtually pray that he may not be 
rich; and thus do the covetous desires of his heart 
add the sin of dishonesty to that of disobedience, 
and the covetous labors of his hands deny his 
own petitions. 

And oh! there is a sinfulness in this sin but 
little thought of; it is a despising of the mark 
which our Lord has set upon his people here, 
that the world may know that he has chosen 
them, and the Father may be glorified in them. 
It is an attempt to wipe out the spot of his 
children, and put on the livery of the God of 
this world. He clothes his servants in scarlet 
and fine linen; he loads their tables and gilds 
their roofs, and bribes them and besots them 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 41 

with these things, "the lusts of the flesh, the 
lusts of the eye, and the pride of life." And 
because he does so, God has chosen to make 
the absence and contempt of all these things, 
to be the peculiar characteristic of his people. 
The terms rich and poor are made use of in 
Scripture continually to designate those whom 
God accepts, and those whom he disowns; not 
that his grace is measured by degrees of wealth, 
but because he means to put dishonor upon 
all that man makes boast of, and set a mark 
upon his people that Satan cannot counterfeit nor 
the world mistake. He chose the poor of this 
world, not because they were poor — we must not 
erect poverty into a merit; but he chose them to 
poverty, and left them to poverty, and gave to 
poverty his richest blessings; because renuncia- 
tion of what the world esteems, and happiness 
independent of it, exhibits the most striking 
contrast to J all that can be seen in Satan's 
kingdom, and makes the most decided visible 
separation between the followers of Jesus and 
the children of the wicked one. Faith, hope, 
and love, the inward graces of the Christian, are 
things that God beholds, and the Spirit of God 
bears testimony of within us; they are the signs 
by which Christ knows his servants, and his 
servants know themselves. But they are not 
5* 



42 THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 

visible to them that are without; the world does 
not understand and will not believe, and turns 
to ridicule this testimony of the Spirit within 
the soul. The outward and visible sign of a 
regenerate spirit, which God has set upon his 
people in the sight of all men, and no one can 
refuse to see when it is there, is this very re- 
nunciation of the pomps, and pleasures, and pur- 
suits of earth; this detachment of the heart 
from perishable things, and devotion of it, with 
all its feelings, and powers, and affections, to 
a higher object. It follows, as might be ex- 
pected, that this is the mark the world takes 
most offence at, and Satan hates the most; be- 
cause they cannot refuse to see it, and cannot 
counterfeit it, and cannot ascribe it to a false 
assumption. It should be the mark the 
Christian loves the best, because it is that 
which gives most glory to the Father upon 
earth; the one he watches over with most 
zealous care, lest it become obscured, and the 
world perceive not that Christ has chosen us 
out of it. What shall we say, if it is that which 
oftenest is not to be found ? I may not say 
that indifference to all that " the nations seek 
after" should be a Christian's pride — it is an 
evil word, never used in a good sense in the 
Scripture, though man affects to give it one; 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 43 

but it is the Christian's dignity, his real great- 
ness, his badge of honor, the one that Jesus 
wore himself; and when he took it off to put on 
eternal glory in its stead, he hung it about the 
necks of his disciples, and of all that should 
believe on him through their word. 

The love of the world is an open breach of 
our Baptismal vow. And to this I would call 
the attention of those to whom we spoke before 
— who excuse themselves in the pursuit of 
wealth and pleasure on the ground that they 
make no profession of renouncing the world 
and do not think it necessary. But you have 
made a profession: if ever you have entered by 
baptism into the Christian church you have 
renounced it, by vows solemnly taken before 
God in the presence of his ministers. Men 
count the breach of promises a degrading sin. 
Thou Holy God! who keeps his word with 
Thee, or ' feels himself dishonored when he 
breaks it? Every Christian breaks it when his 
heart goes after its covetousness, and men jus- 
tify him in it when they give honor to his 
gains; and the covenant which the creature 
makes with his Creator, the redeemed with his 
divine Redeemer, is the only one that can be 
broken without dishonor. The parent who 
makes his family an excuse for the accumula- 



44 THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 

tion of property and pursuit of gain, stands as 
it were twice perjured; for he made the same 
covenant for his children as he made for himself, 
and breaks it by every ambitious wish on their 
behalf. The thought makes us tremble for the 
sins of England, of our money-getting, money 
loving people. Never was there so much 
eagerness, so much restless, sleepless, peaceless 
desire to increase the inheritance of our chil- 
dren, and place our families in a higher condi- 
tion than their fathers. We speak proudly of 
our success, the nations have looked with admi- 
ration on our efforts; but success brings no 
relaxation, possession never has enough. It is, 
I believe, an axiom in politics that the only 
prosperous people are those whose wealth is 
perpetually increasing: perfectly true on earthly 
principles: but no one hears the warning voice 
of revelation, " Arise, Lord, disappoint him, 
cast him down, deliver my soul from the wicked, 
which is thy sword, from men which are thy 
hand, Lord, from men of the world, who 
have their portion in this life, and whose belly 
thou fillest with thy hid treasure; they are full 
of children, and leave the rest of their substance 
to their babes."* Blessed of God, the only 

*Psalm xvii, 14. 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 45 

blessed of this prosperous people, is he in whose 
heart is heard the quick response, a But as for 
me I will behold thy face in righteousness — I 
shall be satisfied when I awake after thy like- 
ness' ' — the likeness of God in Jesus Christ, 
who chose lowliness and poverty for himself, 
and chose it for his children and his friends, 
and pronounced on riches many times a curse, 
but never once a blessing. 

Worldliness comprehends the sin of unbelief. 

It must be so; because if the word of God 
were fully taken as to the value of this world's 
good, the vanity of its possessions, and the 
danger of setting our affections on them, no one 
would covet such an evil thing. But we do 
not believe it. We deny it in every thought, 
and word, and deed. Let the professing Chris- 
tian watch his words when he sits in company, 
his thoughts when he walks by the way, the 
direction of his cares and the yearnings of his 
heart, and certify himself whether he really 
believes what God has said of the unrighteous 
mammon, that riches are a snare, and the desire 
of them idolatry. And if he tries, as he will, 
to misinterpret the word of God, and say it is 
the unjust acquisition or pernicious use alone 
of wealth that is condemned, is not this the 
very trick of unbelief, to accept the word, while 



46 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD, 

we deny the sense: as if he who made a reve- 
lation of his will to man, did not use the words 
that would convey his meaning, disguising in 
ambiguous terms the very will he determined 
to reveal. Is it so written? Are not dishonesty, 
oppression, and sinful indulgences, condemned 
separately and distinctly from covetous desires, 
the parents too often of that guilty progeny? 

Above all, worldliness is idolatry.* It is so 
written in Holy Scripture.t As if the Spirit 
foresaw that men would doubt its guiltiness, 
and wonder to see it ranked among the gross- 
est crimes; that Christians who shrink with 
horror from those other sins, would feel no 
shame in the pursuit of this, an explanation is 
twice affixed, to leave us without excuse — 
" which is idolatry" — the greatest of crimes, 
the breach of the first and great commandment, 
the most fearful of condemnations, on which the 
judgments of God have been most terrible from 
the beginning. Had the word of God spoken 
less plainly to this fact, the judgment of man 
would never have assented to it, and still in his 
heart he disputes against it, and in his thoughts 
denies it. We think we can accumulate wealth 
without loving it; make gain our object without 

* Ephes. v. 5. t Col. iii. 5. 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 47 

setting onr hearts upon it; carve the idol upon 
our walls, our tables, our equipage, and all 
around us, without falling down to worship it; 
but God has said we cannot, for where the 
treasure is, there will the heart be also. " Love 
not the world, neither the things that are in 
t he world. If any man love the world, the 
love of the Father is not in him. For all that 
is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the 
lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of 
the Father, but is of the world." How fearfully 
have many tried to disprove this divine position, 
by giving God their hearts without renouncing 
the covetous desires of the flesh; and thus 
" have erred from the faith and pierced them- 
selves through with many sorrows." He who 
will have more gods than one, is as much an 
idolater as he who denies the only true One. 

i ITS DANGERS. 

If the love of earth be sinful in itself, 
how many are the sins to which the pursuit of 
it indirectly leads. But these can scarcely be 
separated from its dangers; they are those 
u many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown 
men in destruction and perdition."* It seems 

• Tim. vi, 9. 



48 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

superfluous to say more of danger, when God 
has said, "No covetous man, who is an idolater, 
hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ 
and of God." This word should be enough. 
But the danger does not lie hidden under God's 
sovereign will. It is made manifest by the 
light of grace to every single eye: it may be 
felt in every honest heart wherein the Spirit 
dwells: it is discovered, like the barren quick- 
sands of the deep, by the miserable wrecks that 
have been made upon it. Esau sold his birth right 
for a mess of pottage. Balaam the son of Bosor 
loved the wages of unrighteousness. Hezekiah 
showed them all the treasures of his house. 
Thirty pieces of silver were the price of Him 
that was valued. Ananias and Sapphira brought 
a certain part. " Demas has forsaken us, 
having loved the present world." It is not the 
much or the little that constitutes the tempta- 
tion. Satan knows the price of them that he 
will buy, and will not betray himself by too 
prodigal an offer. It is not the extent of our 
desires that constitutes their danger, nor is it 
necessarily their development in transgression. 
Hezekiah's sin was no more than a vain display 
of the wealth he had. In Esau the merest 
trifle made him put contempt on the promises 
of God. It is fearful ground to stand upon; 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 49 

the moment a covetous desire enters, trans- 
gression is at the door; the first step taken for 
the love of earth is in a path that has no way- 
marks— we take it at a venture. A fearful 
progress is exhibited by the Apostle Peter, 
of them who having a heart exercised with 
covetous practices, "had forsaken the right 
way, and gone astray, following the way of 
Balaam."* The mist of darkness for ever was 
the issue: the progress was emptiness and 
peacelessness; swelling words of vanity and 
guilty pleasures; corruption to others and 
bondage to themselves; entanglements in the 
pollutions of the world from which they had 
been called out, and a latter end that was worse 
than their beginning. How much worse let 
every professed Christian think. We know the 
way of righteousness; with the knowledge of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, we have learned the 
corruption of the world; perhaps for a time our 
eyes have been turned from its pursuits and 
allowed to look upon the riches of divine love. 
These were on the right way, since they are 
said to have forsaken it; their path was right, 
their knowledge was right — but alas, their hearts 
were wrong, they were gone after their cove- 

* 2 Peter, ii, 14. 



50 THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 

tousness. The Israelites were on the road to 
Canaan, but their hearts returned to Egypt. 
They ate of the spiritual meat, but they lusted 
after evil things. " Neither be ye idolaters as 
were some of them: as it is written, The people 
sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play."* 
Here it is the enjoyment of wealth, not its 
accumulation, that is idolatry. It takes the 
heart from God, or shares it with him, or satis- 
fies it in his absence, or makes it unconscious of 
his presence; thence the possession of wealth, 
and the gratifications it procures, become a 
danger in themselves, which no wise man would 
covet. The fact is so in every case, even though 
the wealth should have come to us unco- 
veted, and be unblameably possessed. It is 
still a weight to carry, under which, though 
God himself has laid it on us, we shall need a 
greater measure of his grace. " How hardly 
shall they that have riches enter into the king- 
dom of heaven;" hardly, even when the power 
of God has made it possible, and his grace has 
made it sure. The possessions of this world 
apart from its pursuits, are a snare, a legion 
of snares, which he who wishes to encounter, 
is little conscious of his own weakness. They 

* 1 Cor, x. 7. 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 51 

are an incumbrance; and he that carries most 
will not run lightest on the course, or come the 
foremost in: so great is the difficulty of using 
them rightly, and wearing them loosely, and 
withholding from Satan's influence what he 
claims as especially his own. To them on 
whom God lays the difficulties of exalted wealth 
and station, He gives grace sufficient for their 
need. But he has not promised it to those who 
choose them for themselves, and eagerly and 
successfully pursue them, in spite of all the 
warning that has been given, and the assurance 
of his word that they are not desirable. Among 
other clangers, therefore, there is danger of his 
grace withheld, and without it who shall stand? 
"Every man that striveth for the mastery is 
temperate in all things;" and most of all things 
in that which will impede his course. " Choked 
with the cares, and riches, and pleasures of this 
life." "What shall I eat and what shall I 
drink, and wherewithal shall I be clothed?" 
How shall I increase my stores, and where 
shall Ideposit them, and how shall I make use 
of them, and how shall I secure them? Happy, 
if " How shall I quit them?" be not the least 
careful thought. 

"No man that warreth entangleth himself 
with the affairs of this life, that he may please 



THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 

him that hath chosen him to be a soldier."* 
The wealth and splendor of an eastern camp 
were not more dangerous to its effeminate and 
voluptuous warriors, than are the riches of the 
world to the soldiers of Jesus Christ. Do they 
not know this — do our Christian brethren in- 
deed not know, how often the thoughts of what 
they have to lose, of what they have to enjoy, 
has made them to turn their backs in the day 
of battle — to connive at some ungodly practice, 
to compromise some truth, to hide their colors, 
or be basely vanquished? There is one at least 
who knows it — Satan knows who has houses 
and lands to care for, oxen to prove, and 
ground to go and see — he knows who it is 
that says, "I have no time to read — I want 
leisure to serve — I want composure to pray — I 
have so much business — I have so much com- 
pany — society expects so much of me — my sta- 
tion, my character, my connections, there is so 
much to be considered — "Lord, I will follow 
thee; but let me first go bid them farewell which 
are at home at my house. "t The Father, too, 
knew this, when, having made a great Supper 
for his Son, he was obliged to send to the high- 
ways and hedges for his guests — to them that 

* 2 Tim. ii, 4. t Luke, ix, 61. 



THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 53 

had nothing to leave and nothing to enjoy, the 
poor, the afflicted, and the suffering, because 
the prosperous were too busy. The Son of 
Man beheld it in the buried secrecy of the 
heart, and meant to make it manifest, when he 
said to one who offered himself to be his follower 
whithersoever he should go, " The foxes have 
holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but 
the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head/' 
The occupation, incident on the possession, 
and still more on the pursuit of earth, is a 
great hindrance to spiritual life. Man's time 
is so short, and his powers are so limited, that 
whatever is devoted to one pursuit is withdrawn 
from another — he can no more think of two 
things at once, or feel two things at once, than 
he can do them; perhaps ignorance or incon- 
sideration of this fact exposes the Christian to 
more danger than he is aware of; while he is 
caring for the body, the care for the soul is 
suspended — while he is employed in laying up 
treasures upon earth, he is not increasing his 
store of spiritual riches or spiritual graces — 
" Redeeming the time," " while it is called to 
day," so short, so uncertain, and "the night 
cometh in which no man can work," " because 
the days are evil," — while every thing is against 
us, and every thing without tends to counteract 
6* 



54 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

the work of grace within, and draw us back or 
keep us back from following after righteousness, 
how find we so much time, and thought, and 
care for other things ? The consequence is what 
might be expected. Christians do not grow in 
grace, they do no longer shine as lights in the 
world, the salt has lost its savor, the city once 
set upon a hill has ceased to be discernible 
from afar; in these days men inquire which is 
it, and scarce any one can tell another where 
to find it. The reason is, the world has grown 
too busy; the Church itself has grown too busy. 
One to his farm, and another to his merchan- 
dise, and another to ,, his politics — and all of 
them together in the pursuit of earth. There 
is no leisure for that near communion with 
God on which saints were used to grow, for 
that study of the divine mind which might 
catch something of its impress, and reflect 
something of the light of Jesus by continual 
contemplation ^and close following of his foot- 
steps. We know that it is so. We see that 
the lamp of the sanctuary burns dim, and there 
are not a few who fear that it is about to 
be removed. Is there not a cause? Do not 
Christians spend in the pursuit of earth, the 
time that should be spent with God ? It is 
useless to confound the things that differ, and 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 55 

say, as it is said, "-We must attend to our 
business — we must pursue our lawful occupa- 
tions — we must earn our bread, and provide 
for our own, and fulfil the duties of our con- 
dition, and do diligently what God has given 
us to do — we cannot withdraw ourselves from 
the common occupations and interests of life, 
to be devoted wholly to spiritual things — we 
desire more time for these, but we must live." 
Would that men were honest ! " Your Father 
knoweth that ye have need of all these things." 
He has not required the one thing, nor forbid- 
den the other; but he has said, "A man's life 
consisteth not in the abundance of the things 
that he possesseth." If the poor man would 
be contented with his daily bread; if the 
frugal would think his present gains enough, 
and the opulent be contented with half his 
profits, none would want leisure for the service 
of God, or J the culture of the soul. What 
God has given us to do will hinder no man's 
growth in grace; it is the pursuit of that which 
He has forbidden. Satan can lay snares upon 
a lawful path, and hide them under cover of 
God's providence. He tells the poor of the 
pleasures of independence^ and of something 
laid up against another day. He says to the 
striving, work a little harder and you may 



56 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

increase your business. To the wealthy ac- 
cumulator, Go on a little longer,- you can retire 
and enjoy your leisure by and by. It is that 
wily tempter's favorite scheme, to make men 
spend the greater part of life in selfish accumu- 
lations, under the name of industry, and the 
small remainder, in self-indulgent idleness, un- 
der the name of rest. 

St. Peter says of them who loved the wages 
of unrighteousness, that " they allure, through 
the lusts of the flesh, them that were escaped 
from error." St. Paul, having spoken of pride, 
of envy, strife and railings, subjoins, with a 
correcting word, " But godliness with content- 
ment is great gain; for we brought nothing 
into the world, and it is certain that we can 
carry nothing out." St. James deprecates the 
admiration of wealth, by the vices that so fre- 
quently attend it. "Do not rich men oppress 
you, and draw you before the judgment-seats? 
do they not blaspheme that holy name by which 
ye are called?" And is it not a fact ostensible 
to all, that much of the injury man inflicts on 
man, and much of the wrong we suffer, and 
the sins we excite as well as commit, the strife, 
the envy, oppressions, emulations, and con- 
tentions, by which every house is troubled, 
have their origin in this sin — struggling to be 



THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 57 

the richest and the greatest; to excel each 
other in that which is highly esteemed among 
men, but by reason of its sinfulness is an 
abomination in the sight of God? " From 
whence come. wars and fightings among you; 
— come they not hence, even of your lusts ?" 
Who will boast that he can covet earth, with- 
out feeling or provoking envy; pursue it with- 
out a temptation to injustice or oppression ; 
possess it without pride, or lose it without re- 
pining, or spend it without provoking or alluring 
any one to sin? St. Paul had all these dangers 
in his mind when he charged the followers of 
Jesus not to keep company with the covetous : 
if any one who was called a brother were 
covetous, "with such a one, no not to eat."* 
He is too dangerous a companion for men so 
prone to sin, so easily drawn aside from the 
ways of peace and truth, or hindered in their 
progress. And by far the most so, if he be 
called a brother, if he professes to be a follower 
of Jesus Christ, while the covetous desires of 
the flesh have possession of his heart. The 
fortunes amassed by successful speculation and 
excessive trading, have seduced thousands to 
their ruin, in Scripture words, to perdition and 

*lCor. v, II. 



58 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

destruction. It is the gamester's success, and 
I doubt not that it has in it the gamester's 
curse, the ruin of others whom it has induced 
to play the same venturous game. But while 
the lesser game of chance is played with guard- 
ed doors and windows barred to hide the guilty 
work, because men call it vice ; this greater one 
goes on before the face of day, the world 
shouts victory to the winner, and the mind of 
God is not consulted. By the immutable holi- 
ness which is not to be mocked with names of 
man's devising, be we assured there is one 
parental eye, that looks as easily through the 
disguises of the mart as through the walls of the 
gaming-house, and sees his children in as much 
danger in the one place as the other. How 
long will they be deaf to his entreaties? 
" Come out of her, my people, that ye be not 
partakers of her sins." "Touch not, taste 
not, handle not, which all are to perish in the 
using." The very companionship of the worldly 
man is dangerous; his success excites us 
to ambition, his elevation awakes our envy, his 
countenance gratifies our pride, his luxury lures 
our senses, his idols win our hearts. Nebuchad- 
nezzar-like, he sets up his golden image in 
the way, and what time they hear the sound of 
the music, all the people fall down and 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 59 

worship it. Is it all now, as it was once, 
except the servants of the living God? 

And if the mere companionship of this sin 
be a danger from which the brethren of Jesus 
are exhorted to withdraw, lest they be either 
injured by it themselves or occasion injury to 
others, by seeming to give it countenance — 
if so dangerous be the contact of this sin, what 
must its indwelling be to the soul of the be- 
liever, to his safety in this perilous world, to 
his sanctity in this wicked generation, to the 
Spirit of God that dwelleth in him, to the 
image of Christ who has redeemed him, to the 
glory of the Father who has chosen him? 
"Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone." 
" Ephraim shall return to Egypt."* Christians, 
hear it; God may let you take your way. He 
may let the god of this world double and 
treble his wages, since you so much covet them, 
to bring you j back into the bondage from which 
you have escaped. Since you will not take his 
word, nor hearken to his dissuasion, He may 
let you have the thing your hearts are set upon: 
—grow rich, grow great,' fortune shall pour 
her gold into your lap, nothing shall cross you, 
none shall interrupt you, not a whisper of 

* Hosea, ix, 3. 



60 THE. LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

conscience shall break the silence, nor a move- 
ment of the Spirit interrupt your quiet. This 
is the most fearful thought of all. Successful 
competitors for the mammon of unrighteous- 
ness, are you sure it is God's blessing that 
makes your business to prosper, and your 
ground to bring forth plentifully, and your 
speculations all to turn out well? "Ephraim 
said, yet I am become rich, I have found me 
out substance. In all my labors, they shall 
find none iniquity in me that were sin."* My 
industry has gotten me this wealth, I have 
robbed no man. But the fowler .is snared in 
his own net: the proud are taken in their own 
craftiness. You would have the temptations of 
wealth, you coveted its dangers, you have 
spread snares on your own path and gins for 
your own feet. Satan is on the watch, the 
world knows its time. "God hath left him: 
Take him, for there is none to deliver him."t 
"They shall return into Egypt." 

Covetousness and idolatry were the prevailing 
sins of the natural Israel. " With thy wisdom 
and with thine understanding thou hast gotten 
thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver 
into thy treasures: by thy great wisdom and 

* Hosea, xii, 8. t Ibid, viii, 13. 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 61 

thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and 
thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches."* 
We need not dwell upon the length of their 
abandonment, or how they have profaned God's 
holy name among the nations whither he has 
sent them. Need we tell the believer of long 
seasons of desertion and defection? of wither- 
ing doubts, and cold despondency, of heartless 
prayers and vacillating faith, shameless denials 
and disgraceful compromise? Need we paint 
the darkness of the soul's abandonment, or the 
desolation of returning light; time spent, life 
gone, deeds that cannot be undone, words that 
cannot be unspoken, sinners encouraged and 
religion put to shame, the Spirit grieved, Jesus 
dishonored and God's holy name profaned? — 
Is it not enough, and more by far than this 
world's good can pay for, though Israel be 
brought a second time from Egypt, and the 
broken covenant be again renewed? A risk, 
too uncertain to be taken: for though it is in 
the promises of God that he will not cast off 
for ever, it is as plainly written that no covetous 
man who is an idolater, shall inherit the king- 
dom of God. There is an incertitude in the 
profession of religion in the present day, that 

* Ezek. xxviii, 4. 



62 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

makes it more than ever necessary to make our 
calling and election sure, and look for the 
testimony of that Spirit whereby we are sealed 
to the day of redemption. The time was when 
the profession of Christianity could only be 
made at the loss of all that is highly esteemed 
among men; when to follow Christ was neces- 
sarily to renounce the world. The test of 
sincerity was then the sacrifice of, all earthly 
interest, inseparable from the profession of 
the Gospel. God has never changed the test — 
Christ has not revoked his words — " If any 
man will come after me, let him deny himself 
daily, and take up his cross and follow me." 
But on the outward profession of religion, no 
such renunciation is now consequent — the man 
who becomes a Christian has no enforced 
sacrifice to make, it is a name of honor, in- 
dispensable even to his success in life. He may 
keep all that he has, may aspire to all that 
he has not, may lay house to house and field to 
field, and his profession of Christianity be no 
question or impediment; nay, in our own 
particular case, so much has even the lesser 
persecution ceased which was between the 
worldly professors of Christianity and the more 
devout, the strictest profession of the Gospel 
scarcely now involves any involuntary sacrifice 



THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 63 

of this world's good. Our great enemy can 
discern the time, he knows when to infuse the 
revolting bitter, and when the poisonous sweet 
into the cup — that cup which Jesus has left for 
us to drink. Once he would have us dash it 
from our lips; because the taking of it lost us 
the present world. Now he would have us 
drink it adulterated with all base desires, per- 
suading us we may have the present world as 
well. The sign of the cross with which the 
persecuting world once branded the foreheads 
of its followers, must not be engraven, if they 
will have it, by themselves: never was there a 
turn, of so much uncertainty whether it be 
upon us, of so much required earnestness on 
our part to make sure of it. And what is the 
outward and most visible testimony? We have 
noticed before what God has chosen it should 
be, the same it always was, inseparable now 
as heretofore from the reality of religion 
though not from its profession. Our church de- 
fines its character, when she draws the pale 
lines of baptism on the forehead; how soon to 
be effaced and disavowed, in the pursuit of all 
that has been professedly renounced. Brethren, 
consider this, collate all the Scriptures that 
speak directly to the point, if you have never 
done it yet: the number of passages in which 



64 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

the love of the world is condemned and the 
pursuit of it forbidden, will surprise^ and over- 
whelm you; do this, and say, if professed 
Christians of the present day are not in danger 
of perishing eternally, under the condemnation 
of this sin. Or if not so; — if by redeeming 
love and sanctifying grace the unrighteous 
leaven be at length subdued and the vain pur- 
suit forgiven, has the Christian still no fear of 
judgments, of the furnace seven times heated, 
that must burn out the stain of earthliness 
seven times dyed? God's judgments are darkly 
overhanging, already the enemy are seen in 
arms, the conflict is on every side preparing. 
If we be left of Him, "now will the nations 
hear of it, and compass us around, and cut 
off our name from the earth."* But the wedge 
of gold is hidden in the land, it is hidden in 
the Christian Church. Are we sure, each 
Christian singly for himself, it is not in his 
house or in his heart? "Neither will I be 
with you any more, except you destroy the 
accursed thing from among you." The Church 
of Christ will we trust be purified and saved 
for his "great name;" but woe unto them in 
whose tent the forbidden thing is found. The 



* Joshua, vii, 9. 






THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 65 

wealth that he has accumulated for his chil- 
dren, the garments — scarlet and fine linen with 
which perhaps he has already clothed them, 
the indulgences with which it is probable he 
has corrupted and enticed them into sin, the 
example of earthliness which he has certainly 
set them, what a pile will there be for the 
burning, what fuel for the execution of divine 
wrath! " Go to now, ye rich men, weep and 
howl for your miseries that shall come upon 
you. Your riches are corrupted and your 
garments are moth-eaten, your gold and your 
silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall 
be a witness against you, and shall eat your 
flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure 
together against the last day."* 



conclusion. 

One word of persuasion after these many 
words of remonstrance. Simply consider, where, 
and what we are — or, shall I not say who we 
are? for this debasing sin has made us to for- 
get it, and degrades us in the presence of the 
universe. If we are what we call ourselves, 



* James, v, 1. 

7* 



66 THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 

Christians, we are the sons and daughters of 
the Most High, the elect brethren of Jesus 
Christ-— heirs of God, and joint heirs with 
Christ, in all the riches of his godhead, an 
eternal weight of glory. This is what we are 
said to be. And we are bought with a price — 
redeemed, not with silver and gold, but with 
the precious blood of Christ. We are not our 
own — " Ye are Christ's." This is what we say 
we are. And we are in a world that lieth in 
wickedness — that passeth away as a shadow — 
is but as yesterday when it is passed — a day, and 
no to-morrow. And this is it about the value 
of which we set ourselves at a disagreement 
with our Lord — at variance with his word, his 
judgment and his example; in the pursuit of 
which we trample upon his laws, do despite to 
his Spirit, and despise the blessing he has 
assigned to poverty; in the possession of which 
we forget the curse that is upon it, and the mind 
of God respecting it. What have we to do — 
what can we have to do any more with this base 
idol? baser than those of wood and stone; they 
indeed were the work of men's hands — but this 
is Satan's own — the god of this world, whom 
worshipping it, we worship. Days of anxiety, 
and nights of care; troubled intellects, and 
prayerless hearts; broken communion and dis- 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 67 

turbed devotions; have Christians ever found 
the possession worth its cost? And oh, if we 
could calculate the loss — all that we might have 
had, and had not for its sake. The state of de- 
pendence or independence is it? — dependence 
upon God, and independence of every thing 
beside, to which the soldier of Jesus Christ is 
chosen, is a state the most felicitous that our 
condition here admits of — nay the happiest of 
which created being is capable, for it is the 
very bliss of heaven ; it is our advantage in a 
peculiar sense, by reason of the great evils to 
which we are exposed, and the moral and 
spiritual defectability of our earthly nature. 
The manna that fell day by day round Israel's 
tents, was not more suited to their homeless, 
wandering life, than is to ours the promised 
supply of what each day requires, without any 
careful thought about to-morrow. It was a 
provision which the people of the land could not 
cut off— which the enemy could not come in to 
make a spoil of, which they had neither trouble 
to carry, nor fear to leave behind. Oh ! do 
we know what trouble is, and what fear is, and 
what the thief and the despoiler are, and not 
perceive the felicity of being secured from all 
of them? " Be content with such things as ye 
have;" — to-day with what you have to-day — 



68 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

to-morrow with the things of to-morrow : a 
liberal, an almost prodigal supply, it would be 
found to most of us, if our minds were in con- 
formity with the word of God, and all covetous 
desires of the flesh exterminated. But the 
blessedness of dependence in Christ is no mere 
negative of earthly care, the riches of God are 
no mere security from want; they are a fulness 
of satisfaction which the world's good cannot 
purchase or bestow — or take otherwise away, 
than by taking that place in the heart which 
they should occupy. "He hath filled the 
hungry with good things; and the rich he hath 
sent empty away." How empty ! It is a 
foolish game the worldly play ; for a stake not 
worth the having, if they win it, and very often 
lost. Essential emptiness — a broken cistern 
that will hold no water ; a demand never to be 
diminished by supply. And then how full are 
they whom God has filled. How rich when 
every good thing given us here, is so much 
added to all-sufficient wealth — to infinite riches 
and eternal glory. " Godliness with content- 
ment is great gain;" gain that brings no 
temptation, begets no envy, excites no pride, 
cherishes no selfishness, and misspends no time. 
As the world has no demand for such posses- 
sions, it will not tempt us to divert them from 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 69 

the service of God, and the prince of this world 
will claim no homage for them. But while we 
deal unfaithfully with the unrighteous mammon, 
who will commit to us the true riches? Chris- 
tians forego, by their own choice, this abundant 
blessedness; wherefore David prays, "Incline 
my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to 
covetousness ; turn away mine eyes from be- 
holding vanity, and quicken me in thy way." 
He knew that these were opposites ; that they 
could not consist together. As contentment 
cannot consist with unsatisfied desire, nor god- 
liness with a forbidden aim, this gain is un- 
avoidably forfeited by the pursuit of any other. 
We wilfully forfeit it every day, and wonder 
that we have it not. We read the sweet pro- 
mises of God, " Thou shalt keep him in perfect 
peace, whose mind is stayed upon thee," and 
wonder that our hearts are so ill assured, so ill 
at ease ; we talk about the want of interest in 
our devotions, the joylessness of our prayers, 
distance from God, and cold anticipations of 
the life to come. And I believe we talk our- 
selves sometimes into a melancholy acquies- 
cence in these privations, as something insepar- 
able from our condition. Inseparable from 
earthly care and earthly ambition, they surely 
are; but these are no inseparable part of a 



70 

Christian's condition. There is a promise 
peace, of perfect peace, "Whoso hearkeneth 
unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet 
from the fear of evil." Peace was the last gift 
of Jesus to his disciples; peace was the first 
announcement of his coming; peace is the ex- 
clusive gift of God, and the sole privilege of his 
believing people; for Satan, with all his false- 
hood, cannot cheat us into this, nor the world 
with all its blandishments confer it on us. 
Christians, I believe, wonder; I am sure at 
least they complain, that they enjoy so little of 
this best boon of heaven; but is it not a fact 
that even Christians overlook to whom it has 
been promised? It is the blessing of the poor, 
the dependent, the unselfish, and the satisfied. 
We are rich, or mean to be rich, or wish to be 
rich. If this is the secret, that so few of us 
enter into our rest, ours though it really be, by 
the free gift of God, our Saviour's parable 
would be well applied, " Sell all that you have 
and buy it." Alienate from yourself the wealth 
you have, by spending it in the service of God, 
and for the happiness and benefit of mankind; 
make yourself poor in the midst of your 
possessions, by considering nothing that you 
have to be your own; but a portion rather of 
the common stock, a common loan from heaven, 



THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 71 

committed to you for the use of all: so may 
you bring yourself, however rich, within the 
blessing promised to the poor. And go not 
after more; you have not paid the usury yet of 
what you have. Men do not get peace by in- 
crease of their debts. The more you accumu- 
late the more you will owe to your fellow- 
creatures and to God, and they may hale you 
to prison before you have time to pay. If you 
appropriate to yourself your increase, your 
claim to poverty will be denied, and the bless- 
ing of it lost. Above all things, do not wish 
for more — this is the direst woe of all, for it 
puts us beyond the reach of God himself to give 
us peace; the blessing will not stay with us an 
hour: peace without contentment is impos- 
sible. 

" Prove me now herewith, said the Lord of 
Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of 
heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there 
shall not be room enough to receive it.* Give 
up what God requires of you, those earthly 
wishes and unhallowed aims, and try if the 
blessedness he can give you be limited by any 
thing but your faith to expect it, and your 
capacity to enjoy it. As disciples of Jesus 

* Malachi, iii, 20. 



72 THE LOVE OF THE WORLD. 

Christ, we are called upon to give back our dis- 
honest acquisitions, to everyone his own, "to 
God the things that are God's" — "your body 
and your spirit which are his;" to the world 
its good things, which are not our portion ; to 
Satan his wages, whose service we renounce. 
It seems that we have robbed them all, and 
while all are demanding restitution, it is no 
wonder we are not at rest. 

Every church in this imperfect state, has a 
leaven of evil peculiarly its own, and every age 
and country its particular temptations, as each 
individual has his most easily besetting sin. 
Wherever the defence is weakest or the assault 
the most violent, the strictest watch and 
strongest guard are set. His individual danger 
each one knows, and if he be wise, provides for. 
But there is a common vigilance every Chris- 
tian owes to the community — a soldier's duty 
is not to secure himself alone. It is ours to 
discern the signs of the times, the temptations 
of the church, and the sins of the age, making 
separately as well as unitedly, a firm and open 
stand against them; lest we become accessary 
to sins which we may not personally have com- 
mitted. The amalgamation of the church with 
the world, and the good terms on which they 
now commix, has made worldliness to be the 



THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 73 

peculiar temptations of the church, while eager- 
ness in the pursuit of wealth, successful ness in 
the accumulation, and luxury in the enjoyment 
of it, are the universal characters of the age. 
At this time, therefore, above every time, a 
servant of God should show himself faithful by 
moderation and simplicity of living, by lowli- 
ness and contentedness of spirit, by indifference 
to money and abstinence from the pursuit of 
earthly things. But I think there is also a 
danger in the church quite unexampled and 
exclusively her own: though too much in unison 
with the character of the times to be unnoticed 
by the seducer and accuser of the brethren. 
The church, the true church of Christ, has now 
first discovered that she wants money. I do not 
impugn the providence of God in this great 
change. If she who passed over Jordan with a 
staff, now rides on camels and on horses, with 
the treasures of Edom and the ships of Tar- 
shish, I do not say that God has not appointed 
it. The ever-growing requisition that turns 
to religious purposes so large a revenue, each 
year increased and still demanding increase, has, 
I doubt not, the work of God to do, and his 
blessing on what is done — and it may be for 
this very purpose, that He has turned the cur- 
rent of his grace upon a different level in so- 
8 



74 THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 

ciety from that in which its gracious influence 
used to be most apparent. But I say that it 
brings with it a peculiar danger — Christians 
have a temptation to covetousness which they 
never had before, and a pretext for accumula- 
tion which they are not ashamed to own — they 
think they can desire money for the love of 
God. beware! God has never said so. The 
ways of his providence may change — his word 
remains immutable, "Thou shalt not covet." 
Already the sin discloses itself beneath the 
sacred veil, and we have grown but too familiar 
with its language. " e l want more money that 
I may do more good." " I wish I were richer, 
that I might have more to give." " What a 
blessing in these days to be rich." When God 
wants more money, he will find it: when He 
wishes you to give, he will provide the means; 
meantime I am sure there is no day mentioned 
in his Holy Book, in which it shall be a blessing 
to be rich, until Jesus gives us " the riches of 
the glory of his inheritance." On the contrary, 
in the latter-day judgments, the curse seems to 
lie most particularly upon wealth. 

" Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and 
naked I shall return thither." Instead of seeking 
or of wishing more, let us rather denude our- 
selves of what we have in the service of the Lord, 



THE LOVE OP THE WORLD. 75 

doing with the day's means the business of the 
day — for when the work is done for which his 
church is invested with so much wealth, and 
moved by his Spirit to so much charity, it is 
likely she will be stripped to the last shred, 
that the nations may see her beauty is not in 
these, and she may know that these are not her 
blessedness. 



HUMAN SYMPATHY. 



We often hear complaints of the world's un- 
kindness and injustice, particularly in the con- 
versation of women; and, I have thought, most 
frequently from those who have made little or 
no trial of it. That it should be particularly 
from women, if it were just, is not surprising; 
for they have most need of, and are most de- 
pendent upon others' kindness. That it should 
be from the young, the untried, the inexpe- 
rienced, whose opinions of mankind have not 
been acquired amongst them, whose knowledge 
of the world is little more than hearsay, and 
their mode of speaking of it little else than a 
conventional language, is calculated to bring 
into doubt the justness of the complaint. And 
surely if it is not just, it is in a high degree 
prejudicial to the mind to live under the 
impression that we have not found, or shall not 
find, such kindness from our fellow-creatures 



HUMAN SYMPATHY. 77 

when we need it, as our hearts tell us we would 
show to them. 

I drop the question of justice: none of us 
could bear it from God or man. We all need 
indulgence and forbearance from each other; 
as our Divine Master knew, when having tried 
a little while the form of manhood, and the 
company of men, he abrogated the law of retri- 
bution — " an eye for an eye and a tooth for a 
tooth," and substituted the law of mercy in its 
stead. And because he did abrogate it, it is no 
longer in force : we can no more plead it than 
we can abide it: we all want more love, more 
help, more consideration than we deserve; and 
if we have failed in these towards others, we 
cannot excuse ourselves by saying that we have 
been just. With respect to that comparative 
merit which, in a restricted sense, may pro- 
perly be called deserving — for I do not mean to 
say that all among their fellow men deserve 
alike — I think that, generally speaking, justice 
is done us upon the whole : I mean tfyat, as far 
as our outward conduct and conversation make 
us known, we are pretty accurately appreciated 
by mankind in general: admitting of course 
some cases of temporary and personal injustice, 
to which the best are exposed from individuals, 
against the sense of the community. 
8* 



78 HUMAN SYMPATHY. 

But of kindness — is it true that there is, gene- 
rally a want of kindness in the world? I do 
not think it is. I have known much of life in 
its various forms and aspects, and I have not 
seen that the desolate can find none to pity, the 
helpless none to take their part: I have not seen 
the homeless without a welcome, or the lonely 
without a friend. I have never seen anything 
but vice, and that not often, left unbefriended 
by mankind : and, I will add, for it is the ma- 
ture conviction of my mind, that I have oftener 
seen kind offices ill-requited, than I have seen 
them withheld where they were needed. I 
do not speak this of the religious community 
in particular, but of the world at large : for I 
think it is the point, perhaps the single point, 
in which an ungodly world may challenge 
comparison with the people of God, in the 
kindness it shows to its own. If any say that 
they have found otherwise, let them reconsider 
it: has the kindness been refused them, or have 
they repelled it ? Was the unkindness gra- 
tuitous, or did they provoke it ? Had they ever 
a wound from one hand, that another, yea two, 
were not stretched forth to heal? Did they ever 
want a friend, and deserve one, and not find 
one ? If any say they have heard otherwise, 
which is the case of by far the greater num- 



HUMAN SYMPATHY. 79 

ber of complaints, let them be aware that 
there are no impressions so false as those which 
are made by common talk upon an inexperi- 
enced heart : while to go armed into a friendly- 
country, tends only to provoke the hostility we 
anticipate. 

Why then, it may reasonably be asked, if the 
world is not indeed an unjust one, or an unkind 
one, has this language so extensively obtained; 
why is it in all ages the phraseology of the poet 
and the moralist, whose study is mankind ? I 
think it is because we do not sufficiently distin- 
guish between the want of kindness, and the 
want of sympathy; between a general kind 
intention, and willingness to do kind offices 
towards each other, and that power and apti- 
tude to enter into each others' feelings which 
may properly be called sympathy. " Arise and 
help me" is one thing: " Sit down and feel 
with me" i is another. If the one appeal is 
seldom made in vain, how seldom is the other 
listened to on earth ! It is in this we fail ; it 
is the want of this we suffer ; it is this the reli- 
gion of Jesus should supply ; for nature cannot. 
There are many reasons why it cannot. As 
if the curse of Babel had lighted on the heart 
as well as on the tongue, men have ceased to 
understand each other; the language of each 



HUMAN SYMPATHY. 

one's sorrows and his joys has a foreign accent 
in his brother's ear, with this sad difference ; 
the tongues of Babel had all a community in 
their strangeness — man's isolated heart has 
none. From the moment that the blight of 
selfishness followed upon sin, man, severed from 
the root on which he grew, seems to have been 
severed from its branches too, and planted by 
himself; each one a stranger to the other's 
mind, and incompetent to appreciate what an- 
other feels. Every thing in this world, tending 
as it does to the increase of selfishness, has 
added to that incompetency. Ignorance and 
prejudice, and pride, the narrowing influences 
of habit and association — all that makes man so 
much in love with his own individuality, so 
much preoccupied with his own being, as to 
look askance upon whatever is not his, to sus- 
pect whatever he is not familiar with, and ridi- 
cule or scorn whatever he has not, or is not in 
himself: all has conduced to blunt that generous 
sensibility which can alone enable us to appre- 
ciate the feelings and emotions of another. If 
some hardier flowers of Paradise have borne 
transplanting into an ungodly world, and can 
at times put forth their blossoms in spite of 
sin's baneful influence; if there is still pity, 
still kindness and benevolence in the heart of 



HUMAN SYMPATHY. 81 

fallen man; it is not so with this; it died where 
it was planted, it died when man was separated 
from his God; the common link was broken; 
and man does not sympathise with man, not 
so much because he will not, as because he 
cannot. 

I need not press this truth: there is not a 
heart that does not respond to it. There is not 
one of us who does not know the look of vacant 
wonder, the smile of cold evasion that passes 
over the countenance, sometimes even of our 
best and dearest — aye, and our kindest too, if 
judged by the intention — when the full heart 
would give utterance to its secret feelings, to 
joys they never, tasted, and sorrows they never 
knew. Who among us has not marked the 
impatience, and felt the chill, and shrunk from 
the touch of unsympathising silence, as if it 
were real unkindness, which it is not? At 
no other moment of our lives, perhaps, have we 
so intensely felt our need of an all-seeing, all- 
compassionating God. It was this that broke 
the heart of Job, when external evils could not, 
and wrung from him, silent before and uncom- 
plaining, such bitterness of grief. Had it no 
part in the breaking of another heart, when the 
only One who could have felt sympathy for his 



*m^ 



82 



HUMAN SYMPATHY. 



mysterious agony, had for a moment turned his 
countenance from him? 

I have not brought forward the subject to 
complain. Just consideration should rather 
stay complaint. When for want of sympathy 
in our peculiarities of mind or circumstance, 
others mistake and wound us, it is we who are 
the unjust, if we attribute to unkindness what 
is mere incapacity, and undervalue the good 
intentions because of their inaptness. It would 
be a moot point, to say the least, which party 
in a society creates the most discordance, and 
is the most unreasonable: they who do not 
sympathise in what they cannot understand — 
or they who are irritated because they are not 
understood. 

I bring the subject forward, because I feel 
that if we have all been sufferers on this point, 
we have also all been guilty. We have not 
tried to supply what we have felt to be defi- 
cient: we have not tried to be to others what 
we have desired they should be to us: we have 
not sympathised with each other on a point in 
which we all profess to feel alike — the want of 
sympathy. *Yet surely, if Christians, re-united 
to one stem, planted together in the likeness of 
one life and death, are only just, only benevo- 



HUMAN SYMPATHY. S3 

lent, and in intention kind, it may well be said 
to them, " What do ye more than others ; do 
not the Scribes and Pharisees the same?" The 
Word that requires us to feed the hungry and 
clothe the naked, says also, " Weep with them 
that weep, and rejoice with them that do re- 
joice." " If one member suffer, do not all the 
members suffer with it? If one rejoice, do not 
all rejoice with it?" Words more briefly sig- 
nificant of real sympathy could not be found; 
designating most justly that entering into the 
feelings of another, that nice appreciation of 
another's mind, with all its peculiarities of cha- 
racter and circumstance, in the world so un- 
known, in the heart so longed-for, in the sym- 
pathy of Jesus so beautifully exemplified. Jesus 
feels with us, as well as for us: this is the thing 
we do not for each other. I admit that it is 
difficult; all is difficult that is against nature; 
and all is against nature that grace has to do. 
It is difficult for the rich to sympathise with 
the poor, the learned with the ignorant, the 
refined with the vulgar, the gentle with the 
rude; and quite as much so if we reverse the 
terms: and as much so for the calm to sympa- 
thise with the hasty, the phlegmatic with the 
sensitive, the firm with the vacillating, the 
strong-minded with the fearful and the weak. 



84 HUMAN SYMPATHY. 

By no means does the onus lie chiefly with 
those who seem to have the advantage; the 
need of sympathy is mutual, and the difficulty 
is equal. But what has made it difficult? Our 
self-love and self-preference; our pride, and 
prejudice, and narrow-mindedness. What made 
it so easy to Him who had no likeness, no 
fellow; no sinful infirmities nor mental weak- 
nesses; nothing in common with any man but 
what is common to us all? It was not his deity 
that enabled Christ to sympathize with man; 
else were it beyond our aim to imitate. It was 
the holiness, the sinlessness, the perfection of 
his humanity — the absence of all that hinders it 
in us. If so, it is manifestly our sinful, not 
our commendable peculiarities, which prevent 
our mutual sympathy. The difficulty does not 
arise from the difference of character and dispo- 
sition God has imparted; but from the dark- 
ness, and discordance, and insensibility, into 
which our nature has fallen. As such it is to 
be met, to be contended with, and, through 
grace, to be overcome. 

Though natural brotherhood has proved too 
cold a soil to bear the heavenly plant — and 
nowhere perhaps is the want of it so deeply felt, 
as among the really attached members of the 
same family— there is yet a garden, which 



HUMAN SYMPATHY. 85 

might promise better, if more pains were taken 
to plant it there. But we enter God's adopted 
family, each in the full panoply of his own self- 
love, and find that we understand each other no 
better than in the world. Every one has his 
own Christian, as well as his own natural, cha- 
racter; and no one shows consideration of an- 
other's. We share their labors, supply their 
wants; do any thing but enter into their 
thoughts and feelings as if they were our own: 
and we excuse ourselves on the ground that we 
cannot sympathise in what we never experi- 
enced, nor enter into characters so uncongenial 
with our own. But this is not like Christ. He 
wept on earth for sorrows he did not share; for 
sins in which he could have no participation; 
he sympathises in heaven with every emotion 
of the believer's bosom — he, the pure, the high 
the heavenly, the omnipotent! And we, whom 
nothing distinguishes but some difference of sin; 
some difference of infirmity ; some trifle, more 
or less, of light and shade upon the same base 
mould; — we say we cannot sympathise with 
each other, because we are not alike 1 



ON 



THE USES OF COMMON THINGS. 



AND THEY THAT USE THIS WORLD, AS NOT ABUSING IT ; FOR 
THE FASHION OF THIS WORLD PASSETH AWAY." 1 CoUIN- 

thians vii, 31. 



ON THE USE OF SUPERFLUITIES. 

Nothing is unimportant which affects, or can 
be, in the remotest degree, connected with prac- 
tical religion ; and what is there in the life and 
conversation of the child of God, over which 
the newly imparted principle of divine life 
can exercise no influence or control. I always 
grieve to hear it said, " What has religion 
to do with this ?" Religion is the worship 
and the will of God — Christianity is the wor- 
ship and will of God manifested in Jesus Christ: 
unless there be any thing in us, or about us, 



ON THE USE OP SUPERFLUITIES. 87 

with which God has nothing to do ; anything 
we have, or do, or are independently of him; 
unless we have any possession over which 
He has no right; any faculty on which He 
has no claims ; or any powers respecting which 
He has no will, there cannot be any thing with 
which Christian principle has nothing to do. 
Religious principle has to do with dress, and 
company, and conversation, and amusements, 
and all the lighter, as well as graver occupations 
of this childhood of our spiritual existence ; in 
which, if our heavenly Father left us unrestain- 
ed, we should presently hurt ourselves, even 
with our toys. But if we separate from gene- 
ral principles the minute details of Christian 
practice, to discuss every particular apart, we 
shall very soon bring upon ourselves, and what 
is worse, upon our Christian profession, the 
argumentum ad absurdum. " What has re- 
ligion to do with a tune, a color, the shape 
of a bonnet, or a motion of the feet?" are 
questions which cannot be answered, neither, 
I am persuaded, profitably discussed, without 
connecting the links of the disjointed chains, 
apart from which they have neither utility nor 
importance. Noboby can show — and for the 
encouragement of the despisers on the one hand, 
and the troubling of the tender conscience on 



88 ON THE USE OF SUPERFLUITIES. 

the other, I think it is a pity we should try to 
show — what preference the will of God can 
have between pink and brown, between rib- 
bons and flowers, between one arrangement of 
musical sounds and another, between a mea- 
sured movement and a careless romp — above all, 
what objection He can have, or what prohibition 
extend to the exhibition anywhere of the exqui- 
site workmanship of his own wonder-working 
hand. I shall not hesitate to say, that taken in 
the abstract, and apart from circumstances that 
may, or may not, be attached, such a prefer- 
ence, such an objection, such a prohibition is 
impossible. Who taught the infant eye to mani- 
fest almost its first susceptibility of delight at 
the preception of some brilliant color? And 
who set us the example, who taught us to 
gratify this innate sense, but He who painted 
the tulip and the rose, who dressed the heavens 
in blue, and clothed the earth in green, and 
gave to man the faculties and the materials with 
which to imitate every shade of coloring that 
he sees in nature. Was it done to snare our 
fancy with external show, and teach our senses 
a forbidden pleasure? Who taught the little 
worm to spin so exquisite a tissue for its own 
repose, and ply from age to age its selfish toil; 
unconscious that it labors for another? For 



ON THE USE OF SUPERFLUITIES. 89 

whom? For what? Our necessities? No, — 
the silk and velvet are not necessary: it is for 
our indulgence; for ornament, for splendor, for 
the gratification of our earthly taste. And who, 
if it is necessary to go on, communicated the 
scent to the lavender, and the juices to the pine, 
and to every fruit its own peculiar flavor, to 
please what we justly consider the lowest of 
our appetites? 

I have met with Christians who think that a 
dust-begotten creature is misemployed in using, 
and his hand in cultivating, and his eye in gazing 
upon what the eternal God has employed his 
power to make; who express themselves as if 
they thought it beneath the intellect of a mortal 
man to like, to value, to enjoy, what infinite 
wisdom has adapted to his liking; and time 
mis-spent in the study of that material creation 
over which the hosts of heaven sang with joy, 
and shouted to behold its wonders. 

But the earth is cursed, they say, and man is 
fallen. He is indeed, and there needs no 
stronger proof of it, than that having brought 
down the curse by choosing to have, and 
aspiring to know what was forbidden him, he 
justifies it by disdaining to enjoy thankfully, as 
the gift of God, and examine studiously, as the 
work of God, what was designed to gratify his 
9* 



ON THE USE OF SUPERFLUITIES. 

earthly senses, and exercise the faculties of his 
mind, in due subordination to higher and better 
things. Shall I be bold to say that, considered 
by itself, I do not believe it is sinful, in the 
most devoted child of God, to use, to wear, to 
possess, or otherwise to enjoy, any of the things 
that God has made, or enabled us to make by 
the skill He has imparted and the materials 
He has supplied. The sin, when there is sin, 
and, alas! how much there is in our use of all 
his bounties, is to be looked for in contingencies, 
in over-estimation and undue preference, in 
excess, in misappropriation, in influences and 
associations, in ends and aims and motives; 
affecting our spiritual as well as moral health; 
our life in Christ, as well as in the world, 
the eternal as well as present purpose of our 
Creator and Redeemer. 

The objection to these sinless instruments of 
sin, being a thing of time, and place, and cir- 
cumstance, which will vary continually; it is 
exactly one of these points in which we should 
forbear to judge others, and suffer ourselves to 
be judged of no man, so as to shackle our walk 
or burden our conscience in a life of faith; 
above all should we abstain from drawing up a 
code of inapplicable laws, and calling every thing 
inconsistent that is not in conformity with 



ON THE USE OF SUPERFLUITIES. 91 

them: at the same time that we feel con- 
scientiously feel, each one for ourselves, our 
deep responsibility before God, for the minutest 
particular of our life and conversation, as chil- 
dren of light in a dark and sinful world. The 
apostle says, " To the pure all things are 
pure" and "all things lawful," but "not all 
expedient." Man is not pure, the child of God 
is not perfect; and because sin is within him 
and around him everywhere, many things law- 
ful and good in their nature, may be most highly 
injurious to ourselves, or a cause of offence and 
stumbling to others. It does not alter their 
nature, making universally bad what God made 
good; but it does so alter the relative charac- 
ter of things, as to be to individuals an impera- 
tive prohibition of their use. If it be asked 
how we are to discriminate without general 
rules? I answer, by general principles, honestly 
applied to our own particular case, in every 
particular question as it arises, assisted by 
prayer and the written word. 

Leaving the details then as unfit and useless 
subjects of discussion, allow me to dwell a little 
upon the general principles upon which the 
superfluities of life are or are not allowable to 
the family of God. By superfluities, I mean 
all the elegancies, luxuries, style, and orna- 



92 ON THE USE OF SUPERFLUITIES. 

rnent, whether in the equipment of our persons, 
our houses, and tables, or whatever else, that 
belongs to what is called polite or genteel life, 
beyond what is essential to decency and utility. 
For I must say it appears to me a childish in- 
consequence, for a lady to sell her gold chain 
for charity, and give four times its value for a 
candelabrium, to ornament her table. If a 
piece of ribbon will hold a watch, a piece of 
pottery will hold a candle; and I can see 
neither common sense nor common honesty, in 
making a distinction between personal and do- 
miciliary decorations. The lady who sells her 
jewels must surely tamper with her conscience, 
if she does not sell all her superfluous and orna- 
mental plate. If she foregoes the velvet and 
the silk, the purple and fine linen, there must 
go with them the sumptuous fare, the damask, 
the rosewood, and the marble. For if the sin 
be in the useless expenditure, it is equally 
applicable to both cases. If it be vanity, dis- 
play, ostentation, it is as probable in the one 
case as the other. If it be in the tone of mind, 
the earthliness of feeling, and conformity to the 
world, indicated by such indulgences, no dis- 
tinction can be established between one and the 
other manifestation of the evil. There is but 
one point of view in which personal ornament 



ON THE USE OF SUPERFLUITIES. 93 

may claim a sin peculiar to itself, which scarcely 
belongs to our present subject; because neither 
the most costly nor the most decorated dress is 
necessarily the most becoming; and if it were, 
personal beauty is the gift of God, and, as in all 
his other gifts, the sin must arise out of the mis- 
use or over-appreciation of it. I believe it is in 
the order of his designs, that every woman may, 
and perhaps ought to preserve that measure 
of personal agre??ie?is, which she receives from 
her Maker's hands, as far as consists with mo- 
desty, decency, and propriety, her station, age, 
and means. I am not writing upon the love 
of admiration ; but if I may go out of my way 
to make a painful observation, I have been in 
company with religious females, when even the 
prohibited chain or necklace would have been 
some small relief, in the destitution of more mo- 
dest covering. 

We need; not appeal again to the earth that 
He has filled, and the heavens that He has made, 
to prove that God consulted his own glory and 
goodness, and not our necessities, in the super- 
fluities with which He has fitted and beautified 
the habitation of his creatures. That He so con- 
sulted the benefit as well as the happiness of 
mankind, can scarcely be denied, by any who 



94 ON THE USE OP SUPERFLUITIES. 

have considered the constitution of man, and the 
relationship of society. 

Immediately on the fall, the sentence of la- 
bor was pronounced ; a most wise and pitiful 
sentence, although a portion of the curse — at 
once the most powerful check upon corruption, 
and the greatest alleviation of our misery. Next 
to that restraining grace which we suppose to 
be always in exercise, nothing saves the whole 
community of man from the extremity of sin 
and woe, but the necessity under which the 
great mass of people find themselves, of caring 
for their own existence, of employing them- 
selves about the means to live. What would 
the stupid peasant be, and in fact what is he, 
when, his labor suspended, he sits down to 
consider the privations of his lot ? What is the 
less stupid, but more vicious artisan, when, for 
want of occupation, he begins to calculate the 
injustice of his fortunes ? And why are the 
richest class, with all their "appliances and 
means to boot," so notoriously the most restless, 
and unsatisfied, and vicious, but because they 
have all their time, and faculties, and powers, 
on their own hands, and know not how to oc- 
cupy and employ them ? Yet where, except in 
the production of superfluities — and how, but 



ON THE USE OF SUPERFLUITIES. 95 

in the permitted use of superfluities, has the 
beneficent wisdom of God provided for the ac- 
complishment of this compassionate sentence ? 
Can we not trace his providential care, in the 
slow discovery of natural properties, and gra- 
dual development of human power in applying 
them, in proportion as the increasing race of 
man made new inventions necessary to supply 
him with employment? And now, in the world's 
old age, with the terrors of a disoccupied popu- 
lation perpetually before us, from time to time 
relieved by some fresh invention, discovery, or 
contrivance, what would ensue upon the reso- 
lution, should it be generally adopted, that the 
use of superfluities is to be renounced, and, 
whatever the amount of our income, expendi- 
ture to be restricted to the decencies and neces- 
sities of life ! Does the philanthropic spirit 
bound with joy at thought of this elysium ; 
when all that we have above our wants will be 
given in charity, and there will be ease and 
sufficiency for all ? We will not inquire of the 
political economist, what sort of a world we 
should inhabit by this time, had such a reso- 
lution obtained from the beginning ; a little 
reflection will instruct the simplest of us what 
would follow on its adoption now. How would 
our pauperised community enjoy our bounty 



96 ON THE USE OF SUPERFLUITIES. 

and occupy their leisure ? Would they serve 
God with it ? We know they would not, and 
if they would they could not, for idleness is not 
the service he accepts. If they who now weave 
the ribbons, or, if you please, the flowers; they 
who dive for the pearl within its watery bed, 
or fetch the diamond from its dark hiding-place; 
and they that set the sail and ply the oar to 
bring our luxuries in; and they that carve the 
fret-work and paint the china, and devise the 
costly pattern; and the hundred others kept at 
work by even one of these useless productions — 
suppose them bidden to forego their labors, 
and accept from our charity what we determine 
no longer to expend upon their workmanship. 
Mortified dependence, dissolute idleness, and 
ultimate misery, would be the destiny of the 
greater part of the recipients of our alms: to 
the givers, I think it would be the relinquish- 
ment, rather than the fulfilment of their stew- 
ardship; to ease themselves of the responsi- 
bility of using for the benefit of all what is 
committed to them. I think it would be to 
refuse any longer to maintain the position 
assigned us, by reason of its difficulties; to 
throw back to God his money, that there may 
be no questioning for its moderate, righteous 
and judicious use. I am not sure but we might 



ON THE USE OP SUPERFLUITIES. 97 

risk to be of those who give all their goods to 
feed the poor, yet have not charity. 

If we are not to do this, to denude ourselves 
of all that is superfluous to our necessities, it 
becomes a question merely of degree as respects 
the claims of charity and of personal holiness, 
in the expenditure of what remains. Of the 
former we can only say generally, for we have 
never met with any fixed proportion that satis- 
fied us; that they who spend in self-indulgent 
luxury what they know it would do more good 
to give away, and they that refuse to give on 
any due occasion, because they prefer to spend, 
will find their condemnation in the word of 
God ; and in their conscience too, if they will 
let it speak. In the just and righteous expen- 
diture of what remains, I think is to be met 
the real, the difficult, responsibility of every 
child of God, in a corrupted and corrupting 
world ; in it, but not of it; the light that is to 
light it; the salt that is to salt it; and yet so 
separate from it, so distinct, so different, as 
never at any time to be confounded with it; a 
sympathising participant in its sorrows and its 
welfare; a careful willing respondent to its 
claims ; but not conformed to its fashions, nor 
led by its opinions, nor governed by its laws. 
It is a responsibility so difficult to those who 
10 



98 ON THE USE OP SUPERFLUITIES 

have riches, that we might well prefer poverty, 
if we were allowed to choose ; and purchase a 
release by giving all away, if so the order of 
providence permitted. 

Not only is the Christian to use the good 
things of this life without abusing them, but he 
is to enjoy them, without loving them ; to have 
them, without seeking them ; to possess them, 
without supposing them to be his own. Paradox- 
ical in terms, this is practically very simple, and 
with respect to the use of superfluities, perhaps 
does make the real distinction between the 
people of God and the people of the world. 
The Christian woman who cares, with anything 
approaching to anxiety, about the decoration 
of her house or person, who covets wealth for 
the sake of its superfluities, or envies wealth, 
because it can afford them: whose heart is 
lifted up by what she has or cast down and 
ashamed for what she cannot have ; who spends 
her thoughts in contriving for what is not easily 
within her reach, or her time in producing what 
she cannot afford to buy ; be it gold or be it 
gems, be it ribbons or be it flowers, be it to the 
value of units or of thousands, brings a guilt 
upon the conscience that will never pertain to 
one who uses her superfluities as she uses her 
titles, because they belong to her condition, 



ON THE USE OP SUPERFLUITIES. 99 

because they become her station, because it 
would require more thought, and attract more 
attention, and be really and truly more osten- 
tatious to go without them ; or even because 
they are pleasing to her taste, and agreeable to 
those around her, and a medium of communi- 
cating to others the pleasure to be derived from 
such indulgences as her fortunes providentially 
afford. The wish to spend, not what we have, 
but what we have not got ; to enjoy, not what 
God has given, but what he has denied us; to 
do with a little what others do with much ; the 
contrivances to eke out our poverty, and ma- 
noeuvres to conceal it; the eagerness of get- 
ting, and the restlessness of wanting, and the 
mortification of not having, and all that soul- 
consuming care how to find means and meet 
expenses, for things, which to go without, 
ought not to cost a sigh, or a thought of sad- 
ness, or a blush of shame: could we acquit the 
Christian community of such sins as these, we 
might keep safely our jewels and our gold, till 
we leave them for the crystal pavement of the 
eternal city, and pass her gates of pearl. 

One other consideration remains: there should 
be an apparent, as well as a real difference 
between the people of God and the people of 
the world. We are commanded to "let our 



100 ON THE USE OP SUPERFLUITIES. 

moderation be known unto all men," to let it 
be seen of man, as well as of God, that we 
renounce the pomps and vanities of the world, 
and all the sinful lusts of the flesh. Modera- 
tion and simplicity may equally characterise 
the Christian walk, in leaving or in using, and 
set upon the disciples of Jesus a distinguishable 
mark. Less splendor, less ornament, less 
luxury, less ceremony, and less expense than is 
customary among persons of equal fortune and 
similar condition, will ever be the manifestation 
of a mind renewed, and a heart detached from 
earth, freed from bondage, and afraid of sin. 
"What have they seen in thy house?" is an 
inquiry we must be prepared to meet. I cannot 
further pursue the subject, and I the less desire 
to do so, in that, notwithstanding the regret I 
sometimes hear expressed upon this point, as 
far as my own observation extends, I think such 
a moderation is more or less perceptible in 
every religious house. 



ON THE USE OF HOSPITALITY. 



In nothing, perhaps, is God's creative pur- 
pose more completely traversed than in the 
social intercourse of the world. That the 
desire of such intercourse, apart from what is 
necessary, is of his implanting, can need but 
little proof — all nature bears witness to the 
fact. There is not an animal, I could almost 
say there is not a flower, that likes to be alone. 
Every bird will chirp at the sight of another 
bird; and every lamb will answer to another's 
bleating. In all existence, there is only God 
who is sufficient to himself; and even He willed 
to communicate his happiness, by peopling the 
universe in which he dwelt alone, with beings 
who could at least derive it from him, though 
they could not add to his. If ever man, fallen 
from God, falls from his own nature too, loses 
all desire for association with his kind, and 
would dwell in total separation, if he could — 
10* 



)F HOSPITALITY. 



he got not that disposition from his Maker. 
The morbid feelings of his mind are no more 
the healthful action of nature, than are the low 
throbbings of the heart, when disease has 
turned its fleshly lobes to stone. How soon 
the infant cries for its companion! How in- 
stinctively the school-boy runs where he sees 
others playing. Sin, and its progeny of ills, 
cannot so early teach them to seek their plea- 
sures independently. 

The use which Satan and the world have 
made of this natural propensity to associate, is 
a dark story indeed. Hand has joined in hand 
to do what no one had dared to do alone — to 
defy their Maker, and forget Him. How well 
the guilty compact has succeeded, is attested 
by the fact, that when God would get himself a 
servant upon earth, he called him out from his 
kindred and his father's house: and when he 
would keep himself a people, he forbad them 
all amalgamation with the nations round: and 
still says to every one who desires to be his, 
" Come out from among them, and be ye sepa- 
rate.-" Upon the customary exercise of hospi- 
tality, the established modes of visiting, and 
what are called the pleasures of society in the 
present day, I do not intend to dwell; still less 
to draw a darkened picture. If I had some one 



ON THE USE OF HOSPITALITY. 103 

by me well versed in the usages of the world, 
still living in its focus, and of candid mind, she 
should sketch the portrait for me with her own 
pencil: she should say what she intends when 
she sends out the invitation: what she aims at 
when she prepares the entertainment: and 
what is the result when all is over. Wanting 
such unsuspected testimony, I pass by the 
world's society; of the stamps that memory sets 
upon it, restlessness in youth, and joylessness 
afterwards, are the strongest impressions. The 
believer knows he must not seek his enjoyment 
in worldly association; and if he might, he 
could not find it; for there is nothing in it that 
would please him. The experiment of conti- 
nuing in society beyond what duty or benevo- 
lence requires, often as it has been made, has 
been a universal failure; which, if not in shame, 
has ended in disgust. Perhaps it would not as 
often have ^been tried, nor so painfully and dis- 
gracefully have been defeated, had a due esti- 
mate been made at first, of what is of God in 
our social appetency, and what is man's perver- 
sion of it: and in what manner the natural 
impulse, instead of being hastily interdicted, or 
perilously indulged, might be restored to the 
uses for which it was intended. 

It cannot be doubted, I suppose, that God in- 



104 ON THE USE OP HOSPITALITY. 

tended our love of society to be a source of en- 
joyment, as well as of improvement — of intel- 
lectual as well as spiritual improvement; to the 
promoting of each other's happiness in this life, 
as well as to the assisting of each other's prepa- 
ration for eternity. These are objects of such 
magnitude and extent, as, if I have named them 
rightly, will answer at once the question whether 
religion should extinguish the social taste, or 
make us unmindful of its demands. It has per- 
haps a tendency to do both. As soon as the 
world's society becomes unsuitable, and its 
pleasures are relinquished, interests so new, so 
vivid, so sufficient, take possession of the soul, 
no void is felt from what is parted with: or if it 
is, a sense of duty and safety in the relinquish- 
ment substitutes tranquillity in the stead of plea- 
sure. Self thus satisfied, it is but too much in 
our nature to forget the claims of others. If 
we do not want society, society in vain wants 
us: when our own cup is full, we do not care 
to see whose else is empty; or while our own 
spirits flow, to inquire whose may stagnate. 
Thus religion, contrary, I believe to the di- 
vine intention, acquires a tendency to render 
us unsocial: to say nothing of the weakening 
of all those mighty counteracters of self-indul- 
gence in the world, which tend so much the 



ON THE USE OF HOSPITALITY. 105 

other way ; vanity, and ostentation, and the love 
of praise. 

But should it be so ? Are religious people, 
whose pious occupations prove sufficient to fill 
up their time and keep their minds employed 
without society, at liberty to withdraw from it ? 
Is it what is good for themselves, or due to 
others, or in order with the design of provi- 
dence? These are questions that constantly 
recur to me, when I hear religious people say, 
they have not time to visit : their duties do not 
admit of their receiving company : and higher 
interests are made a reason for the suspension 
of all exercise of hospitality. To put the query 
in its simplest form, is man at liberty to live 
apart, as soon as he likes to do so ? including of 
course his domestic circle, which is but an ex- 
tension of individual existence : it is his own, 
and so himself. I do not pretend to make in- 
dividual applications of the principle : the de- 
gree of intercourse, the means, and the occasions, 
must vary in every case, and makes an endless 
variation in the exercise of hospitality; but prin- 
ciples never vary; and, once made clear to the 
understanding, the simple in heart will seldom 
err in the application of them. 

If social intercourse is the appointment of God, 
it is almost superfluous to show that it is good 



106 ON THE USE OP HOSPITALITY. 

for us: his appointments are never the arbitrary 
exercise of his will, but in all cases the beneficent 
arrangements of his wisdom. The self-magnify- 
ing, self-preferring, self-indulgent process which 
goes on in a family circle, can scarcely be insensi- 
ble to any but themselves. It is a universal law 
of nature, that disuse diminishes the capability 
of things, while exercise increases it. The sel- 
domer our thoughts are communicated, the less 
communicable they become ; the seldomer our 
sympathies are awakened, the less ready are 
they to wake; and if social affections be not 
stirred by social intercourse, like a neglected 
fire, they smoulder themselves away, and con- 
sign the heart to coldness. If we think that on 
the score of enjoyment, the independence which 
ensues upon such detachment, be more than a 
compensation to ourselves for the loss of mutual 
interest, unless this be also the choice of others, 
and the common good of all, it is still to be con- 
sidered, whether we are at liberty to withdraw 
our quota of enjoyment from the common fund, 
to increase it for ourselves. 

We naturally ask, in what manner are Chris- 
tians to associate ? I think in any manner that 
will subserve the design of our Creator ; that 
will promote mental and spiritual improvement, 
increase our enjoyments in the present life, and 



ON THE USE OF HOSPITALITY. 107 

brighten our anticipations of another. I must 
again, with all modesty, for I am aware there 
may be high authorities amongst them — protest 
against the opinions of those who think that re- 
ligious people may meet only for expressly spi- 
ritual purposes; that no exercise or enjoyment 
of hospitality is legitimate, unless such be its 
denned object. The Christian, if he be indeed 
spiritually-minded, will not leave his religion at 
home ; and it is, by God's grace accompanying, 
a communicable thing. In every company it 
should be our leading desire both to gain it and 
to impart it; forgotten in society it surely never 
should be; and nothing is allowable that can 
make it to be forgotten. Still there are other 
objects, not less the will of God, although sub- 
ordinate, which may bring Christians into so- 
ciety with each other: and not the least of these, 
if I read his gracious will aright, is the pro- 
motion of each other's temporal happiness, 
the lightening of this world's care, the relaxa- 
tion of this world's toils, the sharing of those 
who have, with those who have not, those gifts 
of time so variously distributed by the Almighty, 
whether they be mental or external gifts. 
Should not sadness drink of gaiety's sparkling 
cup? Should not poverty eat from wealth's 
luxurious dish? and ignorance draw out of the 



i08 ON THE USE OF HOSPITALITY. 

stores of knowledge? and loneliness have a 
seat beside the crowded fire? Does He who 
paints the flower, and dresses the worm in gold, 
to please another worm, think it too small a 
reason for our meeting that we can please each 
other? It can be scarcely necessary to say how 
immeasurably distant is this desire to please, 
from the vain display, the wasteful expenditure 
and rivalry of pride, which so often characterise 
the world's assemblies, and may as much cha- 
racterise a religious one, if not conscientiously 
abstained from. These things, instead of pro- 
moting sociability, do really impede it in no 
small degree: the trouble and expense attend- 
ing such exercise of hospitality rendering it 
necessarily less frequent, more exclusive, and 
often impossible. Not less diverse are the 
unholy excitement, the mental dissipation, and 
waste of health, so frequent in worldly amuse- 
ments, from the pleasure proposed to be com- 
municated. They also are rather substitutes 
for sociality, than ingredients of it. Cards, and 
dancing, and other similar amusements, are' the 
resources of hearts too mutually indifferent, to 
derive pleasure from social intercourse: of 
minds that neither care nor mean to be drawn 
out for each other's benefit when they meet. 
Shall we so dishonor the social nature im- 



ON THE USE OP HOSPITALITY. 109 

parted by our Creator, or the divine nature 
superadded by his grace, as to suppose that a 
society cannot be cheerful, affectionate, inte- 
resting, without those subsidiaries of vanity and 
folly? 

Mental improvement is an important object 
of social intercourse: one to which I should call 
it indispensable: and I would press the point 
in particular upon the attention of religious 
parents. The communication of children with 
each other, beyond the family circle, is almost 
always injurious; they have nothing to impart 
that is beneficial: but ample capacity by colli- 
sion to call forth, if not to originate what is 
evil. Pious parents, I believe, never do so 
wisely as when they bring up their children 
apart from other children. But when they 
cease to be children, and before, as far as it can 
be accomplished in the society of grown people, 
social intercourse is indispensable to the forma- 
tion of the mind and character: books alone 
will not do it. There have not been found 
anywhere understandings so perverted as some 
that have been formed by study, without the 
intercourse of men. And I think we cannot 
with any candor deny that religion, and the 
ministry of religion are sometimes at a disad- 
vantage by insufficient knowledge of mankind, 
11 



110 ON THE USE OP HOSPITALITY. 

the result of restricted intercourse. If it be 
asked what sort of society, or what manner of 
intercourse is calculated to improve the mind, 
[ should say, every sort and every manner that 
is not calculated to corrupt it. No conversation, 
entirely free from an evil tendency, is unim- 
proving: there is no person of correct princi- 
ples, by communication with whom we may not 
learn something ; or unlearn something, which 
is not the least benefit of association: for there 
are errors of judgment, and defects of character, 
which never can be corrected otherwise. Would 
we send our families then into mixed society 
for improvement? Not mixed of the sinful 
ingredients of this world's fashions and opin- 
ions: the risk is too great, and the price is too 
high for whatever might be gained ; and the 
divine prohibition has not left us the choice: it 
is forbidden: but I think, parents for their 
children, and some of us for ourselves, make a 
mistake in supposing that society cannot be 
improving unless it be accompanied by some 
religious exercise, or hallowed by the presence 
of some pious minister; or unless the conver- 
sation be directly upon religious topics: thus 
confining themselves and their families, to 
assemblies, whether public or private, which 
excellent as they may be for higher purposes, 



ON THE USE OP HOSPITALITY. Ill 

are really not opportunities of intellectual 
improvement. 

This allusion brings us naturally to the last 
great object of social intercourse; the spiritual 
good of each other. On this point society has 
its dangers as well as its benefits: but if the 
latter had not predominated, the communion of 
saints had not been left by our Lord, an encou- 
ragement and a blessing to his church during 
his absence from her: his example, his word, 
and the exhibition of religion made by his 
apostles, would not have had the social tone 
which every where pervades them; and man 
would not have had implanted in him the desire 
and necessity for spiritual communication, felt 
in every bosom where it has not been destroyed 
by injurious habits or morbid sentiments. In 
our understanding of things spiritual there is 
much that may be rectified or elucidated by 
comparison with the mind of others. Dogma- 
tism, narrowness, and party pride, are the evil 
growth of uncommunicated religious sentiments, 
with ignorance of the sentiments of others. If 
such be the need of the understanding, what 
are the necessities of the heart for Christian 
fellowship? Who will say he wants no help, 
wants no encouragement, wants no light from 
another's lamp, nor warmth from another's fire? 



112 ON THE USE OP HOSPITALITY. 

He would be too bold who said it, and too 
proud who thought it. But if it should be so, 
there is another question, Does nobody want 
help of us? 

The power of communicating spiritual good 
in company is certainly very unequal, bearing 
no proportion to the measure of the spirit indi- 
vidually possessed; and the feeling of this acts 
as an inducement to some to withdraw them- 
selves. But all have something to impart; 
they may encourage where they cannot teach, 
or they may not be good judges whether they 
can or not: or it may be a duty to try although 
we fail; at the least, in an interchange of good, 
there must be receivers as well as givers: and 
we may be the one when we fail to be the other. 
Our light, miserable and flickering as it may 
be, must shine before men; as well in the 
social circle as on the domestic hearth: and if 
by circumstances or connection, or their own 
inclinations, the children of this world be 
brought within our reach, I cannot but think that 
a cheerful, benevolent, unostentatious hospitality 
should be exercised towards them, in the sim- 
ple, prayerful hope, that they may be benefited 
by our society. A dishonest mind may make 
this an excuse for being found in any company, 
or encouraging any intimacy; but then I am 



ON THE USE OP HOSPITALITY. 113 

afraid the lamp is left at home; or is put out 
for the time, that it may not be disagreeable to 
our guests. It is one thing to give wholesome 
refreshment to them that ask it, and another to 
eat of their unwholesome viands; it is one thing 
to present the pure draught of water, and an- 
other to accept the inebriating cup. In this sort 
of intercourse there must be no self-sacrifice: 
we have no command of God to be generous in 
spiritual things, putting our own principles to 
peril in the hope of imparting them. No 
motive can justify association that we find to be 
injurious to ourselves. 

The manner of intercourse best calculated to 
promote spiritual improvement, is the point on 
which there will be most difference of opinion 
among those who have but one object: and 
probably no method is exclusively the best. If 
my own feeling is in favor of that near com- 
munion of mind to mind, and heart to heart, 
which takes place when two speak together of 
the things of God, rather than of more ex- 
tended conversation: still the latter is very 
beneficial, where those who know the least may 
listen and inquire of the more experienced. 
By no means do I think spiritual improvement 
confined to conversation on religious topics: the 
very character of spirituality is to mix religion 
11* 



ON THE USE OP HOSPITALITY. 



with every thing; to deal with secular things 
religiously, to cast the hues of heaven over the 
things of earth, and let its holy influence fall 
insensibly, like the dew drops of which no one 
marks the falling. Nor do I think that read- 
ing or prayer are indispensable to this best 



end, however conducive 
meetings. 



to it, in our social 



ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 



It is not long since I heard a Christian lady 
contend that it is not sinful to attend the Opera, 
although she fully thought it so to go to the other 
theatres, because the Opera is attended for the 
sake of the music only. I felt persuaded she had 
never been there, and did not altogether know 
what she was defending: but the predominant 
feeling of my mind was, How insidious are the 
falsehoods of him who is the father of lies, since 
he can persuade men that a place where iniquity 
walks unveiled, where vice of every description 
finds encouragement, and sin both gives and 
takes its highest wages, can be sanctified to the 
believer's use, by the profanation of one gift the 
more — of one of the most powerful and delight- 
ful gifts of God. Yet is this, in different forms, 
no very uncommon language. We meet with 
persons who have separated themselves gene- 
rally from the world's society; but will go any 



116 ON THE USE OP MUSIC. 

where, into any company, for the sake of music. 
We find parents, who would not admit into 
their families a poem or tale, in which might 
be found a profane word, or an unholy sugges- 
tion, totally indifferent to the words of a song, 
because it is accompanied with music. We 
sometimes see, 1 hope not often in religious 
houses, a large proportion of early life employ- 
ed, the mind dissipated, and money most prodi- 
gally expended, because a child has been en- 
dowed with this sweet gift of nature — music. 

holy God! how is it thou canst bear with 
such base dealing — in that which thou hast 
created for thine own glory — in them whom 
thou hast called by thy name ! This I would 
say, in most deep earnestness to every profess- 
ing Christian, if you will go for music, if you 
will do for the sake of music, or allow, or jus- 
tify, what without it you would consider wrong, 
your act is no more hallowed by its object, than 
was the feast of Dagon, by the use of the sacred 
vessels of the temple. 

As far as we can penetrate the design of God 
in this extraordinary gift, it is at once to gratify 
the senses and improve the character of man. 

1 am far from believing God's gifts restricted to 
utility, in the common sense. We sometimes 
hear it said, every thing in creation is for 



ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 117 

use: God made not any thing in vain. The 
truth of this depends on the sense in which we 
use the words. We must not attribute to the 
mind of God our own small notions of use and 
use'essness, any thing and nothing; lest we judge 
like a child, who takes its few mimic bricks to 
build a house, and calls it a little one; adds a few 
more, and says it is a great one. God made the 
creature for his own enjoyment; it could not 
add to his : he imparted his existence, that he 
might impart his happiness, and be glorified in 
the exercise of his beneficence. Nothing is use- 
less therefore that promotes the innocent enjoy- 
ment of any sentient being. Myriads of crea- 
tures live to no other end but to enjoy a brief 
existence, and be it an hour, a day, or a single 
season, it has served its purpose, and God has 
had this glory in it. That he bestows upon it 
such exquisite workmanship for so small a pur- 
pose, is worthy the infinity of his power and 
goodness. Say that the insect feeds a larger 
insect; this we call its use: that larger insect 
lives to the same end, enjoys itself and dies: 
and if it feeds another larger still, the last worm 
serves only the same purpose as the first. If it 
be said that all are for the use of man — that 
seems too proud an assertion. How useful to 
us a portion of all living things are made, is a 



118 ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 

perpetual manifestation of God's goodness : but 
as there are myriads that man never uses, it 
cannot be the sole object of their creation. And 
of all this beautiful world, in all its curious 
properties, as given to the dominion, and adapt- 
ed to the faculties of man, how small a part 
could be called useful, if the term were to exclude 
whatever serves only for his temporary gratifi- 
cation. The higher enjoyments for which man 
was created, and to which he is reserved, make 
this indeed of little moment in the comparison; 
so little, that we have come to call things use- 
ful and useless according as they tend or not 
to our preparation for eternity: using positive 
terms for things comparative, by reason of the 
amazing distance that is between them. The 
words serve well enough for their purpose ; but 
we must remember again, that it is worthy of 
Deity to have expended great wisdom, and 
great power and benevolence, upon the lesser 
end of man's existence here : even upon his 
transient and temporary enjoyment of a life 
that is but preparatory to a better. We shall 
be wide, I believe, of the purposes of God, if 
we determine any thing in his mind useless, 
that promotes the innocent enjoyment of his 
creatures; or suppose no use of his gifts legi- 
timate, unless it serve the higher end of our 



ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 119 

existence. If so, the Creator has wrought much 
in vain, in all that he has made to gratify our 
mortal sense; and this we dare not think. 
Easy it is, indeed, to lose the greater in the 
lesser uses, the spiritual in the temporal, the 
eternal in the transient; but man's perversion 
does not alter God's design; to which alone his 
people are to conform themselves. 

I shall seem to have wandered from my sub- 
ject; but I wish to explain myself in saying, 
that music is intended to gratify our senses, as 
well as for a higher purpose ; aware that this 
may be disputed in the application, if not in the 
abstract, by those who take the most rigid view 
of the requirements of the Gospel. 

If I am right, the use of music, as a mere 
pleasure, must have the same limitation as every 
other recreation: — that it does not occupy too 
much time, too much thought, or too much of 
any thing that could be better spent ; and that 
it be not the occasion of sin in ourselves, or 
the encouragement of sin in others. Of the re- 
striction no opinion can be given that is uni- 
versally applicable; it must vary, with the 
means and the duties of every individual ; 
there is nothing in it distinct from other recrea- 
tions; the Christian need be very honest with 
himself and God, to regulate lawfully his lawful 



120 ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 



pleasures — but no one can do it for another; 
and light will be granted us if we seek it with 
uprightness. Of the prohibition I would add 
something to what I have already said of mak- 
ing music an excuse for the countenance of sin. 

The very striking remarks of Mr. Newton, 
with reference to the Oratorio of the Messiah, 
so often quoted and so justly appreciated, can 
hardl}^ I think, apply to the believer. The 
madness of a world that makes an amusing 
fiction of its ruin, and mocks the Redeemer 
with the rehearsal of his passion, is not partici- 
pated by the believer. He hears the words and 
uses them as realities, in which his deepest 
interests are involved; a feeling increased, not 
dissipated, by the effect of the music on his 
senses. Mr. Newton could not mean to com- 
plain that men realising their condition, should 
set their pardon or their sins to music; this 
David did — this Moses did— this God com- 
mands us to do in psalms, and hymns, and spi- 
ritual songs; and we expect that we shall do 
so in heaven. The sin cannot be in thus using 
the inspired word of God, some of the most 
impressive portions of which were probably first 
delivered with music; but in the unbelief and 
insensibility with which they are so used. The 
question to the believer resolves itself into this 



ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 121 

-—Whether he may witness a performance, in 
the sin of which he does certainly not partici- 
pate; or countenance a practice, not sinful in 
itself, but sinfully practised. I know that I 
differ from many pious people in thinking that 
he may; provided there be in the place, or time, 
or circumstances of the entertainment, no sin- 
ful concomitant, but such as is confined to the 
bosom of the ungodly, who may be partakers 
with us either in the performance or the plea- 
sure. Where can the believer hide himself, in 
this ungodly world, if he may not share sin- 
lessly what others share sinfully? Where can 
he eat, where can he drink, where can he work 
or play? Are not men doing lawful things 
sinfully every where in the like manner, by 
using the things of God without a thought 
of God, and with ungodly hands profaning 
them? "Then," says the apostle, "ye must 
needs go out of the world." There would be 
no place of safety in it; not even in the sanc- 
tuary, where we hear the sacred words re- 
sponded from unholy lips and unbelieving hearts 
and mix with the profane in the most sacred 
ceremonies; take, possibly, even the hallowed 
emblems from unhallowed hands. It may be 
said that in this case, we do not know it ; but 
we do know it certainly, and our church has 
12 



122 ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 

been called upon to decide that the ministration 
is not affected by the wickedness of them that 
minister. If in the most sacred things the 
instrument be nothing, why should it be any- 
thing in an amusement which tends to elevate 
the believer's mind, to lift his heart to God, 
and soothe and make ashamed the agitations of 
passion and self-love. There may be minds, 
that, by associations of bygone folly, or wanting 
the power of abstraction, have evil thoughts 
so awakened, or better thoughts so disturbed, 
by the profane machinery, as to find it to them- 
selves an injurious pleasure. This is an indivi- 
dual question; again we must be honest with 
ourselves and God, whether we be harmed or 
benefited by the performance. If it be the 
occasion of sinful feelings it must be a forbidden 
pleasure; but individual feelings may not be 
established into a rule for others. Should it 
be suggested that our subscription encourages 
the performers in an ungodly course, I think 
this is not so, unless music, as a profession, is 
an unlawful calling, which nobody supposes; if 
it were, we should do the same wrong, when- 
ever we engage, as we do, the same persons for 
private instruction. 

It may perhaps be thought that these reasons 
go to justify the Christian's attendance at any 



ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 123 

kind of musical entertainment, though the 
music should not be sacred. No: the objections 
in that case have quite another bearing. They 
are the influence of such music on the heart; 
the feelings it is calculated to excite; the 
wishes it is likely to awaken; the dissipation 
of mind, the forgetfulness of God, the indispo- 
sition to devotion, and distaste for graver things 
in which it leaves us; perhaps the offence to 
God by which it is accompanied, in profane and 
licentious language. In public or private, 
alone at the piano, or in the crowded walk, such 
use of the divine gift is sin. If we think that 
we can brave it harmless, we are mistaken; or 
if we can, we must not, lest we be the occasion 
of sin to others. Would we know what music 
is thus excluded, the answer is very simple — 
all that has such effects — a little honesty would 
remove a world of difficulties — the experienced 
believer knows what dims his light, and what 
makes it burn the brighter: the young in 
Christ may walk safely by example till time 
approves their course. 

I have thus spoken of what I think to be the 
permitted use of music, as an enjoyment of our 
temporal estate: but surely God has designed 
it for more than a transient gratification of the 
mortal sense. If he has, we are as responsible 



124 ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 

for not using it as for using it amiss; 
though I can do so but in general terms, I 
would urge it on every Christian family to con- 
sider whether they have made all the use of it 
they might do for their own good and that of 
others. I believe the moral influence of music 
to be very great: we well know how it is made 
available to inflame the passions of the multi- 
tude, to provoke to deeds of heroism or of 
blood, or to enervate and enfeeble, by its volup- 
tuous influence. A sedative and a stimulant 
by turns, there is no medicament to which the 
heart is more susceptible; and I believe the 
habitual use of it capable of exercising a per- 
manent influence over the disposition. If ac- 
customed to watch our own emotions, we must 
all have felt its effect at some time or other, in 
a softened temper, a tranquilised spirit, a 
generous warmth of feeling. Of all the things 
which act upon the heart, through the medium 
of the outward sense, music is one of the most 
powerful to excite to love, whether human or 
divine, to God or man. It is no harmless 
toy we have to play with. We have had pain- 
ful opportunities of observing families in which 
music is the engrossing pleasure and almost 
business of life; remarking the levity, and in- 
sobriety of mind that characterised every mem- 



ON THE USE OP MUSIC. 125 

ber of such a family. We have seen others in 
which, well-directed, and moderately pursued, it 
has seemed like a bond of sympathy that tunes 
a whole house to cheerfulness, harmony and 
love. These are extreme cases: but they 
prove the powerful influence of music in do- 
mestic life. If it did no more than promote 
cheerfulness in a family circle, it would serve a 
great end; for cheerfulness is a Christian grace 
of no mean value; perhaps too little cultivated; 
but I am persuaded it can do more, by soften- 
ing the asperities of our nature, stilling its per- 
turbations, and encouraging its more tender 
emotions. 

And because there is a higher end of our ex- 
istence here, than either temporal enjoyment or 
moral culture, music has a use as much above 
all this, as the heavens are above the earth, and 
immortality above the worth of time. I mean 
as an instrument of devotion. It is the worship 
God himself has chosen : it is the worship of 
nature; it is the worship of heaven. I believe 
that whenever the kingdoms of this world shall 
become the kingdoms of our Lord, and his 
knowledge shall cover it as the waters cover the 
sea, the voice of devotion will be heard in music 
from every glade and mountain, from every 
path and habitation of the just. I wish, as far 
12* 



126 ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 

as might be, that it were so now: for though 
the world's dissonance would mar the concert, 
and to the scattered members of the flock, a 
brother's song be scarcely audible in the dis- 
tance, it would be a grateful sound in angels' 
ears; I believe in the ears of the Deity: for it 
would announce the restitution to himself of so 
much of this great gift as has fallen to his peo- 
ple's share. It would bring glory to God, and 
the greatest benefit to our souls, if devotional 
music were heard habitually in every religious 
house, to whatever extent the means might be 
possessed; cultivated to that express end, very 
moderate talents might be made available. It 
would be no dishonor to the gospel, if every 
house in which it is professed could be known 
to the passenger by the frequency with which 
strains of devotional music were heard to issue 
from it. To wish that it were more cared for 
in places of public worship is superfluous: 
every one wishes the same: and where the 
power is in pious hands, the endeavor has not 
been wanting; it is a part of divine worship, 
that we feel ought to be more in the hands of 
the minister than it usually is, and more on his 
responsibility. 

As a social enjoyment among religious peo- 
ple, the neglect of sacred music appears to me 






ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 127 

quite extraordinary. Every Christian must, 
and every Christian does, prefer it to all other 
music: and as if God were determined in one 
sense to maintain his supremacy, and afford his 
people an opportunity of asserting it if they 
will, the finest compositions in the world are 
of a devotional character. But whether that we 
will not, or that we dare not, demand from the 
prince of this world his usurped possession, a 
very small concession, some solitary hymn per- 
haps, yielded cautiously and almost by stealth, 
is all that can be ventured in our musical even- 
ings, with a feeling that even this is out of 
place. The praises of God should never be out 
of place on grateful lips from a believing heart: 
it is only His expulsion from his own world, that 
has made them inopportune anywhere. If Chris- 
tians meet together to forget Him, if their mirth 
requires His absence, and their social affections 
refuse his participation, as in the world's society, 
then is his name mocked by such an introduc- 
tion of it. If profane songs, or other sinful ex- 
citements, must be brought into our evening 
amusements, then is the admixture of God's 
word an improper one. But I cannot tell why 
an enjoyment so animating, so elevating and de- 
lightful, should not be expressly that for which 
we meet; the understood design of our social 



128 ON THE USE OF MUSIC. 

entertainments. I cannot believe but that such 
assemblies might often claim the promise of his 
own especial presence in the midst, while they 
promoted sociability, and became a bond of spi- 
ritual union and affection. It is objected that 
sacred music does not suit mixed companies. 
There is a forbidden mixture which it certainly 
does not suit, unless to shame the incongruity. 
But it would rarely be offensive to the most 
worldly visitors of a religious house: and to in- 
vite their assistance in it, is no more objection- 
able than to admit the ungodly to our family 
prayers, or public ordinances, alike without feel- 
ing or interest to them. A beneficial influence 
might be exercised if those who, for music's sake, 
now make an ungodly compromise with the 
world, to meet, on neutral ground, were to say, 
" We have devoted our music to God; come and 
enjoy it with us in his name." 

I have extended my remarks beyond what I 
intended; and still they are but desultory allu- 
sions to important things. I will add but two 
or three words relative to music as a solitary re- 
creation. Without wishing to exclude all other 
compositions, I would suggest, to the young in 
particular, what I know to be true, because I 
feel it so : that different kinds of music have a 
different effect upon the mind, and give a differ- 






ON THE USE OP MUSIC. 129 

ent tone to the spirits. Let them watch their 
own emotions to prove if it is not so. We know, 
if we be Christians, what tone of mind is hap- 
piest and safest in a world at enmity with God 
— with ns if we be his children; where Satan is 
ever on the watch to whisper sin, and our own 
hearts ever ready to betray us; and we know 
what state of feeling best prepares us for earthly 
duties and heavenly communion. Whether we 
have recourse to music as a medicine to relieve 
our minds, or as an entertainment to refresh 
them, it is our wisdom to choose such as has the 
best influence on our feelings. This is a discre- 
tion which we exercise in reading, because we 
are fully sensible of the effect produced on the 
mind by what we read. It needs only a closer 
observation to perceive the same in music. If 
the result should seem to require a sacrifice, we 
may be assured it is one of habit rather than of 
taste, which will very soon cease to be a pri- 
vation. 



ON THE USE OF DANCING. 

" God saw every thing that he had made, and 
behold, it was very good." When this conclu- 
sive sentence was pronounced, it included every 
mental and coporeal faculty with which the 
creature was endowed : every sense, every feel- 
ing, every appetite and inclination of the animal 
nature, as well as every intellectual endow- 
ment of the mind, and the still higher capa- 
cities of the immortal spirit. And as no one 
of these faculties was wastefully given, all had, 
and must have had, a legitimate occupation; 
there must have been to every power a cor- 
responding means of exercise and gratification; 
and these, like itself, were included in the sen- 
tence: "Behold, it was very good." When 
I made this remark before, it led naturally 
to the question, whether it is still the case ? 
whether there is still no faculty in man that 
cannot find a sinless exercise or an innocent 
enjoyment: which cannot be restored to its 
original design to promote the glory of God 



ON THE USE OF DANCING. 131 

and the happiness of man, and therefore must 
be relinquished? Admitting that the power 
of the Evil One is limited to the use and exer- 
cise of God's gifts, and cannot make evil the 
good gifts themselves; and admitting of course, 
that since he has no creative power, he cannot 
give a faculty to mind or a property to matter 
which it had not when it came "very good" 
from the Almighty hand: man fallen is still so 
different a creature from man in innocence; life 
in a corrupted world is so different a condition 
from the life of that pure Paradise, that there is 
no anomaly in supposing, apart from our expe- 
rience of the fact, that some of those powers and 
properties may have become inapplicable to our 
jondition, and be no longer capable of a safe 
ind sinless exercise. 

Whether man, in his first state of innocence 
and purity, could have any pleasure in dancing, 
is not worth inquiry: I suppose he might, and 
might have enjoyed it harmlessly. That there 
is something in it pleasurable to nature, I think 
is manifest from the universality of the practice: 
every people, from the most refined to the most 
savage and brutal, have some sort of mea- 
sured exercise, or studied movement of the 
body, which is denominated dancing. It is 
equally not worth inquiry in what the gratifl- 




132 ON THE USE OP DANCING. 

cation consists : whether simply in the anima- 
tion of the spirits and the exercise of the limbs; 
or whether in some satisfaction also to our 
perception of form, and time, and other com- 
binations, which in music and painting we 
call harmony. Let it be admitted that there 
is some pleasure in dancing — apart from all 
from which it never can be parted, the adven- 
titious excitements of time, and place, and com- 
pany, in which it is performed: this I suppose 
will constitute "dancing in the abstract:" and 
of all the abstractions I ever heard of, I con- 
fess it is the most beyond my apprehension. 
The forest maiden sings as she walks over the 
lonely heath ; and the captive princess may pass 
her nights in songs, for the pure love of music: 
but I doubt if turret tower or forest glade ever 
witnessed a pas seirf for the pure love of danc- 
ing. If it should be so, however, I would not 
be understood to make the smallest doubt of its 
propriety; which is conceding all that can be 
desired for the harmlessness of dancing in the 
abstract. 

It will be thought I write very gravely for so 
gay a subject, and proceed but heavily to so 
light an end. But we must bring the question 
within a smaller compass still, before it can be 
practically considered. The question, the real 



ON THE USE OF DANCING. 133 

practical question as it concerns the people of 
God, is not whether under any supposable cir- 
cumstances, and in any state of society else- 
where existing, dancing is, or might be, a harm- 
less recreation: we shall never learn our duties 
by generalities. It is simply this, whether in 
the position of a religious woman in society 
as now existing, she ever does, or can enjoy 
the recreation harmlessly. I do not hesitate 
to say she cannot. We may suppose a case, 
but it does not occur: we may imagine young 
people dancing at home for exercise, the use- 
ful interlude to graver occupations; the grace- 
ful expression of light-heartedness and mirth: 
but they never do so: even children will not 
do it unless it is forced upon them: nature is 
too honest for our purpose: they feel that the 
pleasure of dancing needs subsidiaries, and is 
not to be enjoyed without them. They are 
right. Exercise in a heated room is not the 
demand of healthful nature; studied and artifi- 
cial movements, gravely and carefully perform- 
ed, are not the freedom that the young spirits 
require. If it is a task, very well: if it is a 
recreation, they know that a walk or a game of 
play is better. But send for the company, light 
up the room, dress yourselves as becomes the 
occasion; now we shall see in every brightened 
13 



134 ON THE USE OF DANCING. 

eye, the use of dancing — the delight of dancing 
— now the night will not be long enough to ex- 
haust the pleasure, and doubtless we shall see 
next day the beneficial results of wholesome ex- 
ercise and mental renovation! 

How much talk a little honesty would save 
us! We know better. Every pious mother 
knows there is no opportunity for the enjoy- 
ment of dancing, as it is now practised, without 
an admixture of those pomps and vanities of 
the world which she has promised, on behalf of 
her children, to renounce, and for herself, has 
renounced in making a profession of godliness; 
without the risk of exciting those sinful thoughts 
and vain desires, the lusts of the flesh, the 
lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, which 
it is the work, the no easy work, of the Holy 
Spirit to subdue, and keep in subjection to 
the will of God: without encountering the 
spirit of darkness, in a state of mind the 
most unfitted for resistance. I have heard 
such a mother say, "It never did me any 
harm." Alas! how lightly do we think of 
sin. Is the memory of wasted hours no harm? 
The pride, the vanity, the thoughtlessness and 
prayerlessness of our young days, are they no 
burthen on the repentant soul? Can the re- 
newed spirit look back upon the times when 



ON THE USE OP DANCING. 135 

God was forgotten, and Jesus was made to wait 
without, while the whole soul was absorbed in 
the pursuit of idols, engrossed with vanities 
and drunk with folly; and say they have done 
us no harm; because grace and mercy outstaid 
our carelessness; and that gracious Saviour 
grew not weary of waiting for our leisure? I 
know not what to think when I hear pardoned 
sinners thus speaking of the debts which they 
indeed have never paid: but which have been 
paid, most dearly paid, where not a single sin 
lay harmless on the heart that broke beneath 
the accumulated load; and if there was one 
wrong, that pierced that heart with an in tenser 
anguish than every other, I can believe it was 
a sense of the lightness with which sin would 
be treated by those for whom he bore it; even 
by his own redeemed people. 

It has been asserted in justification of the 
practice of dancing, that it is sanctioned by the 
mention of it in the Holy Scriptures. I will 
not be so disrespectful as to say this scarcely 
deserves an answer: our quarrel is not with the 
word, supposing it to be the word, which in 
the Old Testament, I believe it is not; we 
speak of dancing as it is practised in society at 
the present day, which alone constitutes the 
practical question of a Christian's duty. Does 



136 ON THE USE OF DANCING. 

any one in candor mean to say, that the word 
translated " dancing" in our Bibles, represents 
a similar amusement enjoyed under similar 
circumstances with those which now attend 
it? If so, I can only advise a reference to 
the passages that contain the word, with a 
good comment on the Hebrew text. In the 
New Testament the word is used but on three 
occasions. The example of Herodias' daughter, 
I suppose, will be willingly given up; the 
second reference is merely to a proverbial or 
figurative expression, " I have piped to you," 
&c; the only remaining case is in the parable 
of the prodigal son. Can it be necessary to 
observe, that each particular circumstance of a 
parabolic story is not a moral sanction. No 
doubt, dancing was then, as it is now, a worldly 
amusement, resorted to in seasons of peculiar 
hilarity. An allusion to it as a figure of earthly 
festivity, is no more expressive of approbation, 
than when made to the fraud of a steward, or the 
iniquity of a judge. If this should be thought 
an unnecessary statement, indeed I should have 
thought so too, if this figurative allusion to 
dancing had not actually been produced to me 
as an argument in its favor. 

" But you are fighting a shadow," some one 
will rejoin: "no pious person defends the 



I 



ON THE USE OP DANCING. 137 

practice of dancing; no religious woman ever 
is or can be seen in a ball-room: it is as much 
opposed to her inclinations as it is to her pro- 
fession, and therefore can need no such remon- 
strance. We are sure that our children, if they 
become religious women, will not have any 
taste for such amusements: it is not our pro- 
hibition that can detach their hearts from this 
world's pleasures. They must try them to 
know their emptiness: they will but long after 
the things that are forbidden, unless they have 
an opportunity of judging, and making expe- 
rience of their vanity. When the grace of God 
takes possession of their hearts, it will detach 
them from all such pursuits." Thanks be to 
God, it will. But no thanks to you, if they 
enter upon that hard, conflict, with earthly 
vanities in full possession of their hearts; with 
the habits, and tastes, and fashions of this world 
full upon them; if they have learned its lan- 
guage, and become familiarised with its offences, 
and been stamped to their heart's core with its 
false impressions and perverted images. It is 
not its emptiness or its sinfulness, that young 
people learn on their introduction to the plea- 
sures of the world: it is their fitness to gratify 
a sinful nature — their suitability to the desires 
of a corrupted heart. As the child to whom 
13* 



138 ON THE USE OF DANCING. 

you present some food it has never seen before, 
will hesitate a moment, but, having cautiously 
tasted, devours it with all the relish of a newly- 
discovered treat, and ever after asks for it; so 
the young mind, on its first entrance into life, 
discovers the feast and the appetite together; a 
stranger hitherto to both, but never a stranger 
afterwards to the fitness of the one to gratify 
the other. It is not true that this world's 
pleasures have no zest, its pursuits no satisfac- 
tion, and its pride no charm. Satan's devices 
are not so ill-laid as that. There is, in places 
of public amusement, and in the gayer circles 
of society, all that can stimulate and gratify 
the passions and feelings of the natural heart. 
It is only when the cup has been drunk out, that 
it is found an empty one. It is full enough, and 
sweet enough, to the young lip that sips, for the 
first time, of the inebriating draught. 

But we trust divine grace will bring our 
children out; will snatch them as brands from 
the fire, and sanctify them to himself, a holy 
and peculiar people. This is our professed 
hope; if we are sincere, it is our utmost, our 
only desire for the children of our love. And 
if He should, how little will those children 
have cause to thank their fathers for their 
unmeet preparation to it. Surely, if these 



ON THE USE OP DANCING. 139 

parents knew how the images of bygone things 
stay by the imagination when the heart rejects 
them— how they pursue us in our devotions, 
follow us to our knees, follow us to the very 
presence of our Maker — disturb our prayers, 
pollute our offerings, mix their unhallowed 
images with our visions of delight, and cross 
every sunbeam of heavenly consolation — surely 
they would spare to stain the young memory 
with one needless image of forbidden things. 
And how is it that they do not know? When 
I think of these things, I am at a loss. I ask 
myself, if it is possible that one believer's heart 
is so unlike another's, that the memory of folly 
should be no pain, and the habit of sin no fetter, 
and earthly associations no temptation. Can one 
bear the contact that another shrinks from? 
one make a jest of what fills another with 
remorse? Is it so easy a thing to some to put 
away the vanity of their minds, that it does not 
signify how long they have indulged it? so 
difficult to relapse, that nothing presents to 
them any serious temptation? I cannot tell; 
but when I hear some people speak with so 
much indifference of habits of earthliness, and 
vanity, and pride, so much uncertainty about 
the places and the things that foster and excite 
them; and think of the remembrance so griev- 



140 ON THE USE OP DANCING. 

ons, the burthen so intolerable, which these 
things leave on other hearts: I am forced to 
think there is a difference somewhere. 

Our remarks have reached to an undesigned 
length; and there is more to say. The ground 
which most serious parents take, is that, not 
intending their children should make use of 
dancing as an amusement when they grow up, 
or be allowed an opportunity of doing so, there 
is yet no objection to the learning of it: they 
will not like it the more or the less for being 
taught. This is not true. The capability of 
doing a thing well, does increase the inclination 
for it; if it be a personal accomplishment, the 
wish for an occasion to exhibit it; and when 
the opportunity occurs, the temptation to make 
use of it. But I would rather lay the stress on 
the manifest dishonesty of the parent in thus 
acting. Dishonesty towards the child, to whose 
simple perceptions it exhibits a practical false- 
hood — viz. that dancing is at once right and 
wrong; wrong to be made use of when ac- 
quired, but right to be acquired at great effort 
and expense; a desirable accomplishment now, 
a sinful practice hereafter. No artless mind 
can reconcile these contradictions between the 
precepts of the parent and their practice. But 
above all, it is dishonest towards God; it is a 






ON THE USE OF DANCING. 141 

contradiction to our prayers, to our faith and 
trust on behalf of our children. We teach them 
to do what we rely upon his grace that they 
will not do, and lead them by a way in which 
they should not go, depending upon his Spirit 
to withdraw them. God may be better than 
his word; but he has made no such promise; he 
has not invited the parent to such a trust; nor 
attached a blessing to such a course; the pro- 
mise which has been made is forfeited: "Bring 
up a child in the way that it should go, and 
when it is old it shall not depart from it." I 
think, besides, that everything which a child 
is allowed to do contrary to the profession of 
godliness, until he come of age to take it upon 
himself, is a breach of the baptismal vow, on 
the part of the sureties who have made the 
profession for him. I need not remind the 
parent that a part of this vow is neither to fol- 
low nor be Jed by the vain pomp and glory of 
the world, its carnal or covetous desires. 

No believer will venture to argue that any 
thing proved to be contrary to godliness, con- 
ducive to sin, and inconsistent with Christian 
principle, can be desirable, much less indispen- 
sable, to the temporal welfare of our children. 
I do not admit that dancing is necessary to the 
health or the figure, the grace or carriage of a 



142 ON THE USE OP DANCING. 

woman: but if it is, it does not signify; be- 
cause these must all be sacrificed, if necessary, 
to the principle of conformity with the divine 
w r ill: and when I recollect that the divine will 
is ever in accordance with the temporal as well 
as eternal benefit of the creature, I see it to be 
impossible that any thing prohibited, should be 
necessary for the welfare of the body or the 
soul. 

There is that to which this accomplishment 
is necessary. And this is the real predicament 
in which we stand; the source of all such diffi- 
culties and discrepancies. We have forgotten 
ourselves. We have forgotten that the Lord 
our God " assayed to go and take him a nation 
out of the midst of another nation," "that they 
might know that the Lord he is God, and there 
is none beside him :" and remain a separate peo- 
ple to himself for ever. We dream we are in 
Egypt still ; obliged by its customs, conformed 
to its fashions, and subjected to its opinions: 
thence the endless conflict between the things 
that differ — things incompatible. We must be 
as much as possible like others : we must split a 
hair with principle, to avoid needless distinctions; 
we must do as others do, and be what others 
are, to the utmost point that we can stretch our 
conscience; and that our children after us may 



ON THE USE OE DANCING. 143 

do likewise, we must give them the same oppor- 
tunities, the same advantages, as nearly as pos- 
sible the same education, as other children: and 
all this is as systematically — I had almost said, 
as conscientiously done, as if the assigned posi- 
tion of the children of God, was to be as little 
different and as little dist nguishable as possible 
from the nations of the earth, while they remain 
upon it. Was such the destiny of Israel, when, 
"because he loved their fathers, and chose their 
seed after them, he brought them out in his sight, 
with his mighty power out of Egypt?" Is it 
answerable to any description of the fold of Christ 
— the spiritual Israel, in the New Testament ? 
But the world is Christian — things are altered 
now. Yes, they are altered : the city that stood 
once upon a hill, its battlements distinct against 
the brightened heavens, of which all that looked 
upon it, far or near, could say that that was it 
— like other cities in the?e peaceful times, has 
levelled its walls and built beyond its gates, and 
no one knows the boundary, or cares to guard 
the entrance. Who dreams of danger ? doubt- 
less the enemies have ceased from off the land. 
But has this peace been made by God or man. 
When is it dated, that we may look for the ratifi- 
cation in the word of God ? Which passages in 
Scripture contain precepts for our guidance an- 



144 ON THE USE OF DANCING. 

ticipatory of such a change, or limit the acts of 
separation ? I can find in all the Bible but one 
such time foreseen: when Christ shall reign over 
all: when the kingdoms of this world shall be- 
come the kingdoms of our Lord: when the wolf 
shall lie down with the lamb, and the lion with 
the kid: and Satan shall be bound, that he may 
not deceive the nations any more. 









ON THE USE OF HEARING. 

It is the feeling of every heart that the times 
are peculiar and alarming: the solid earth seems, 
as it were, heaving beneath our feet, and its 
firmest fabrics reeling to and fro. The opinions, 
habits and prejudices of ages, like the broken 
mists of morning, are every where dispersing ; 
disclosing to every eye the unveiled reality of 
things. Objects can no longer gain importance 
by obscurity, nor magnitude by imaginary dis- 
tance. The factitious distinctions of society, 
useful as they have been, cannot abide this 
great disclosure, to hide their want of reality 
any longer; and even their utility will not 
serve them for a covering. Usurpation, op- 
pression and corruption must now hear them- 
selves called by their own names : all human 
influence and power submit to common inspec- 
tion the title deeds of their supremacy. In a 
world so much accustomed to be governed by a 
14 



146 ON THE USE OP HEARING. 

name, to be mastered by an idea, and overrul 
by fictions, fearful beyond description are the 
changes that must attend this great undoing : it 
is like taking away the huge buttresses and 
cumbrous pillars of some antique building, 
whence the spectators shrink away, and even 
the workmen tremble, in doubt whether the 
edifice will stand or fall. The hand that raised 
the social edifice alone knows the mighty secrets 
of its foundations; if it will stand without the 
adventitious props by which men have support- 
ed and, in a measure, disfigured it ; or whether 
the time is come in which He designs that it 
shnll fall to pieces and be left in ruins. The 
child of God has much to think and much to 
fear, in such a time as this; but I cannot believe 
that he has much to do with political manifesta- 
tions. I cannot believe that he, at least, is to 
put his hand to the adventurous work, or mix 
his voice in the multitudinous cry. Well were 
it whispered in the ears of some who call them- 
selves by the name of the Lord, " What dost 
thou here, Elijah — return on thy way to the 
wilderness— do the work of thy holy calling 
without fear; deliver my messages and anoint 
my chosen, and leave to me the care of my al- 
tars, and the maintenance of my covenant, the 
putting down of Ahab and the setting up of Jehu. 



ON THE USE OF HEARING. 147 

Still less can Christian women have to do 
in the noisy current of this world's politics, 
except by that nnperceived but commonly ir- 
resistible influence, which animates or discoura- 
ges the active spirit of man. And whatever be 
the case in a world beyond our reach, I am 
happy in believing that amongst religions wo- 
men, no remonstrance is required upon the sub- 
ject; to the extent of my observation all is as 
it should be; the weight of female influence in 
the religious circles is all on the side of quiet- 
ness and confidence, submission to the things 
that are, and divine reliance for whatever is to 
come. 

More deeply interesting still to every Chris- 
tian bosom, is the condiiion of the church of 
God ; little less agitated, and perhaps nothing 
less alarming, than that of society at large. In 
the externals of religion, in all that is human in 
it, the church shares fully the political revolu- 
tion. Names no longer carry weight; creeds 
and formularies, and conventional usages, are 
losing all authority; the learner is the critic, 
and the teacher not seldom the candidate : 
every one must now have a better reason for 
a thing than that his minister says it, or his 
church enacts it, or his forefathers had it so. 
With the superstitions and formalities, the im- 



148 ON THE USE OF HEARING. 

positions and corruptions, which will not be able 
to confront the matter-of-fact tribunal of the pre- 
sent day, how much will be sacrificed that is 
important to religion, although extraneous to 
it, is also the secret of Omniscience: how far the 
interests of the church of Christ will be affected 
by the maintenance or destruction of any, or 
of all ecclesiastical establishments, we may have 
our opinions, and must have our fears, but it is 
only God that knows. And again we may 
surely say to every believing soul, " In quiet- 
ness and confidence shall be your strength." 
Let us beware how we answer, "No — but 
we will flee upon chariots and upon horses," 
or we will turn round and fight our enemies 
with the weapons of this world's warfare. 
By the church of Christ, I mean rather that 
fold invisible, that inclosure so obscure to mor- 
tal vision, but to the omniscient eye so definite, 
which is neither within the establishment nor 
without it; which can be designated by no 
name of man's inventing, nor entrenched by 
any lines of human circumvallation : which is 
wherever a true believer is, a living member 
of Christ's mystical body upon earth, and is not 
any where beside. Respecting the state of the 
true church at the present time, there is much 
difference of opinion. Some think it is spread- 



ON THE USE OF HEARING. 149 

ing like a green bay-tree planted by the water 
courses, extending its roots throughout the earth, 
and about to overshadow the whole human 
race : they see nothing but promise in the 
extension of knowledge and the spirit of in- 
quiry, and the increase of religious profession 
and exertion. Some, on the other hand, take 
all this seeming good for evil, think vital godli- 
ness is on the decline, its spirit lowered by 
diffusion and tainted by admixture; that the 
religion of Jesus, instead of being the growing 
leaven of a Christianised world, is about to be 
again cast out and persecuted by the confeda- 
rate powers of daikness. I do not wish to de- 
cide between these opposite opinions; every 
attentive listener must be impressed with the 
discrepancy, even in the language of our pul- 
pits : I have sometimes thought of the same 
pulpit: as if there was a more than ordinary 
confusion in t,he minds of pious men, as to what 
our real condition is. God has his purpose in 
all : and when his children can no longer see 
their way, it is their time to stand still and see 
what the Lord will do. Let the future be his: 
my observations respect only the present, the 
tangible, perceptible present ; that which we all 
can see, and all can do, and all are responsible 
to do aright. 

14* 



150 ON THE USE OP HEARING. 

It cannot be denied, I think, that in onr 
church, at the present time, although there 
is an increase of light in respect of its dif- 
fusion, there is a diminution in its intense- 
ness. The few bright lights of other days, 
that fixed all eyes and drew a charmed cir- 
cle round them, into which nothing profane 
might enter; where the world came not in, 
because there was nothing to allure them, and 
the church went not out, because the world 
refused them; these brilliant candlesticks of 
a despised altar have given place to an in- 
definite number of lights almost as indefi- 
nite : while our spiritual teachers are multi- 
plied on every side, the learner has rather to 
find his way through them than by them, 
so indistinct and various are their indications; 
and while the true disciples of Jesus are mul- 
tiplied also, the profession of religion has be- 
come so indefinite a thing, that if He is stil 
known of his sheep, as undoubtedly He must 
be, it is of Him only they can be distinctly 
known. 

Whether this condition of the church is a bet- 
ter or a worse one, or why, or for what end 
God has been pleased touring us to it; whether 
it is a token of his grace for gifts improved, or 
of displeasure for those gifts neglected, I can- 



ON THE USE OF HEARING. 151 

not take upon me to decide: our opportunities 
have been unexampled, our advantages over all 
other nations incalculable: great, indeed, must 
have been our improvement of them, to bring 
us to the former conclusion: in contemplation 
of our duties at the present crisis, it may be as 
well to keep our minds in suspense at least upon 
this point, lest we grow supine in too much 
admiration of our condition. 

Be all this as it may, the fact is so, that while 
the number of Gospel ministers is greatly in- 
creased, and the preaching of the truth so 
much extended, the difficulties of those who 
desire to hear it were never greater than at 
present. Time was when we had only to choose 
whether we would hear an evangelical preacher, 
or whether we would not; and if we would, the 
term had so definite a signification, with some 
differences equally well defined, that in choos- 
ing it we knew what manner of doctrine we 
should hear, and might fearlessly commit our- 
selves to its influence. Not so now. As a 
class, evangelical preachers are no longer dis- 
tinct and no longer uniform: of some of the 
most distinguished every one has a doctrine, an 
interpretation, perhaps even a revelation of his 
own: or he has a particular sort of congregation 
to be suited j or he has a congregation so com- 



152 ON THE USE OF HEARING. 

pounded that nothing can suit it but the com- 
promise of plain gospel truth, in an attempt to 
unite what God has for ever separated. Thus 
the humble, simple, and earnest inquirer, be his 
heart as single as it may in the selection, is at 
the risk of being preached to stone by guarded 
and diluted exhibitions of the truth, or spirited 
away to the regions of fancy, by speculative 
theory. Never was there a period in which it 
was so necessary to every one of us to take heed 
what we hear, what we take our children to 
hear, and send our servants to hear; and what 
is said of hearing, is equally true of reading. 
We know what is called Calvinism, and what 
Arminianism: we know what is meant by 
church and by dissent, by high church and low 
church. It is said that names are invidious: 
and whether from a real enlargement of mind, 
or by a peculiar operation of the spirit of 
equality which is determined to rid itself of all 
distinctions, there is a growing disposition to 
say that names either mean nothing, or that 
they mean something which does not signify. 
It may be so: but there are so many things 
without names at this moment polluting the 
pure streams of truth, I could wish there was 
something by which to call them, though even 
prejudice had been the sponsor. There are 



ON THE USE OF HEARING. 153 

those who teach Socinianism without being So- 
cinians — who instil popery without being pa- 
pists — who make common cause with the 
mammon of unrighteousness without being its 
servants: and not exactly denying any truth, 
or advocating any sin, do so obscure the doc- 
trines and liberalise the practice of the gospel, 
that the religion of Jesus Christ can be no longer 
recognised. 

As women, not guiltless of the cause, we are 
of all people the most exposed to the conse- 
quences of these things. On the former point, 
I feel all the embarrassment of my subject — I 
cannot say what I wonld. Female influence is 
no new discovery; and human weakness is of 
ancient date. What the approbation of the 
drawing-room has to do with the deliberations 
of the cabinet and the movements of the camp, 
is better known to some than it were good to 
be to all. And if on the one hand the opera- 
tion of divine grace might be supposed a 
defence against this influence, there is on the 
other hand a peculiar exposure to it by the sort 
of intercourse which takes place between a 
minister and the female disciples of his minis- 
try. It has happened to me to see the begin- 
ning, and to watch the growth of more than 
one extravagance, and while I have seen female 



THE USE OF HEARING. 

susceptibi.ity gathering stimulants from mascu- 
line intellect, and the most gifted of men seek- 
ing their proselytes among the very weakest of 
women, I have felt occasion to ask myself which 
is the misled, and which the misleader— who is 
in most danger of seduction from the simplicity 
of the gospel; — the flattered idol, or the excited 
worshippers? For it is not common things, nor 
plain things, nor old things, that excited extraor- 
dinary attention, still less maintain it: the cup 
must he spiced afresh for each day's draught, or 
it will quickly pall. The first step in error 
taken, the first novel notion ventured and suc- 
cessful, the temptation to proceed is almost 
irresistible? novelty in religion is truly that 
intoxicating cup which can more easily be 
abstained from than restricted. In the lan- 
guage of political e onomy, the demand pro- 
duces the supply: if it be so in things spiritual, 
women are abundantly guilty of the present 
distraction of the Church of Christ. 

If implicated in the cause, how deeply are 
we affected by the consequences. More quick 
to receive than clear to discriminate, more 
eager in pursuit than firm upon our standing, 
more fearful of wrong, than skilful to detect it, 
women are peculiarly liable to suffer, in faith 
and practice, by obscurity or confusion in the 






ON THE USE OF HEARING. 155 

lights around them; to lose their way, or sit 
down in discouragement. Could those teachers 
who experiment upon established principles, 
prescriptive duties, and received interpretations, 
know the effect of their " curious questions" 
upon the undecided, the unstable, the ignorant, 
and the timid, they would lay their intellects in 
the dust rather than exercise them in so dan- 
gerous a sport. Much we could say upon this 
subject; but our words are not for them. To 
our female friends we say, At this time, above 
all times, take heed what you hear. 

Too restless a curiosity to hear every thing, 
to wander from place to place, particularly to 
follow the tide of popularity, and make our- 
selves acquainted with whatever is talked 
about, although the distinction be acknowledged 
error, has no doubt been a danger predominant 
among us, and a most fruitful source of evil. 
By the reaction so natural to human weakness, 
from conviction of evil on the one hand, falling 
into danger on the opposite, I feel there is now 
some disposition among religious people to 
become careless about the ministry they attend; 
to leave it to be determined by convenience, or 
locality, or whatever else; and provided, as they 
say, the preacher is a good man, to consider it 
of no consequence whether themselves or their 



156 ON THE USE OF HEARING. 

families derive any benefit from his instruction 
whether they hear the doctrines of the gospe 
in fulness and parity, or whether it be partiall 
'suppressed, inadequately exhibited, or mixed 
up with the wild imaginings of human fancy. I 
am afraid this indifference will prove the greater 
evil. To God nothing signifies: all instru- 
ments are equal, and means are only important 
as He makes them so: but He has made them 
so; in spiritual as well as natural things, 
effects follow their causes with a regularity far 
more indicative of his providing wisdom than 
arbitrary interferences would be: and since it 
has pleased the divine sovereignty to manifest 
itself in the use of means rather than in con- 
tempt of them, to man every thing signifies. 
The atmosphere we live in, and the food we 
eat, do not more certainly affect our body's 
health, than the ministry we attend and the 
books we read, give the tone to our religion: 
we are often not sensible of the former, but by 
the effect; nor always, when suffering, con- 
scious of the cau-e: so may it be in the latter: 
it is ofien insensibly that we grow cold in our 
affections, undecided in our views, lax in our 
principles, and careless in our conversation: 
that we become indifferent to what is essential, 
or occupied with what is trifling; exalted with 



: 



ON THE USE OP HEARING. 157 

notions or cast down with uncertainties. The 
rock of ages glides from beneath our feet; the 
simplicity of our trust is gone, and the founda- 
tion of our hopes obscured, while we are 
scarcely conscious of the movement. And 
second only to the influence on ourselves, is the 
effect of our indifference upon others. If ap- 
proving a form of worship, we are indifferent to 
the use of it, and professing certain opinions, 
are unconcerned about the preaching of them, 
an air of fiction is thrown over our religion, 
which is very soon observed by those whom it 
suits to believe that distinctions do not signify, 
and that one way of thinking is as good as an- 
other. In an age when liberalism is the over- 
whelming torrent that threatens to bear down 
all principle and prejudice together, it becomes 
every one who attaches any value to anything, 
by every step they take and every word they 
speak to manifest their principles and opinions. 
By thus standing still, when all beside is in 
motion; distinct and firm when all beside is 
in confusion, the church of Christ can alone 
continue to give light to the distracted world. 
And take heed how you hear. It is the 
preaching signifies, and not the preacher: we 
go to hear the word, and not the minister, and 
should estimate the sermon by its intrinsic 
15 



158 ON THE USE OF HEARING. 

worth, not by the mouth from whence it comes. 
I cannot join in the rather common assertion, 
that it does not signify in what manner the 
gospel is set forth; provided it be the gospel; 
it is our own fault if we are not profited in hear- 
ing. I know that it signifies what we eat and 
drink, even of things good and wholesome in 
themselves, and is no fault of our appetite if we 
remain unnourished: I believe the analogy is 
perfect, when the desire is single; when there 
is as honest a desire for spiritual sustenance as 
there is for the support of our animal nature; 
and I believe we ought to do in the one case 
what we should do in the 'other — to take of 
God's manifold provision that which we find 
best for us. I would rather say, it does not 
signify whom we hear. It is the preference for 
-persons, that has been and is, so fruitful a source 
of evil; that has brought so much party spirit into 
the community of Christ, and divides into cliques 
every religious neighborhood. Who is Paul, 
and who is Apollos? In this pers< nal and indi- 
vidual preference, it is not the minister of God 
who is valued for his office' sake, or for the truth's 
sake that he administers: it is not the unction of 
his words or the clearness of his doctrines that 
determines our adherence — it is himself. The 
moment this takes place, and it may take place 



ON THE USE OP HEARING. 159 

very unconsciously to ourselves, we begin to hear 
the preacher, not the sermon ; we begin to value 
the minister, not the word, and to measure the 
thing spoken by his merits, not by its own. 
Party spirit is the first, but far from the last, evil 
that ensues. It would be painful, perhaps it 
would not be good, to expose to the utmost the 
folly, the extravagance, the errors, and impro- 
prieties that have been the extreme issue of this 
small beginning ; bat in every step of the way 
it is most deeply injurious to both parties. The 
minister is very strong who is neither hurried 
forward to excess, nor held back and shackled by 
the embrace of partiality so gratifying to his best 
desires, as well as flattering to his Aveaker na- 
ture. To the other party, I think the ill effects 
may be traced on every side ; it will be better 
that each one of us should try if we can trace 
any portion of them in ourselves. 



ON THE USE OF ORDINANCES. 



Few things are of more importance to the ad- 
vancement of the Christian character, than a 
close examination of those thoughts and opinions 
which have come into the mind, we know not 
how, and continue to abide there only because 
their right to do so has never been questioned. 
Such an examination is only the more neces- 
sary, if the opinions be of that class of establish- 
ed certainties which are universally repeated ; 
not because every one thinks alike upon them, 
but because they have passed as admitted truths, 
without being thought upon at all. Those who 
are not well acquainted with human nature, are 
little aware how much of mere habit there is 
in our thoughts and feelings, as well as in our 
actions. Upon one of these habitual certainties, 
which seems to me to be taken too much for 
granted, even among the more serious members 
of the Established Church, I have a few remarks 



ON THE USE OP ORDINANCES. 161 

to make ; not as dogmatical positions, which no- 
body can dispute, but as suggestions worthy of 
attention, which all are welcome to refute if they 
can do so, by the word of God, or the testimony 
of his Spirit. 

The question that is in my mind is this — 
Whether the prayers or the sermon is the most 
important part of the public service of our 
church? Every body says it is the prayers. 
But how do they know it is? I am sure we do 
not feel it so ; but then we say we ought. How 
do we know we ought ? Because it is so, of 
course. Nay! but the course of this world, the 
current of men's unsanctified opinions, has been 
always to the wrong; prone, at the best, to 
run counter to the mind of God. It will be 
answered that prayer, as a means of salvation, 
and for the sustenance of spiritual life, is of 
more consequence than preaching. No doubt 
it is ; because the divine life can be sustained 
in the soul without the one;— without the other, 
it cannot. We have many ways of communi- 
cation from God, besides the preacher's voice. 
He has no way of communication from us, but 
by our prayers. The preacher may speak in 
vain; the words of heartfelt believing prayer 
have never been spoken in vain. One is but an 
aliment appointed for the support of spiritual 
15* 



162 ON THE USE OF ORDINANCES. 

life; the other is the, very breathing of that life 
itself, without which the food would be ad- 
ministered in vain. But this is not the ques- 
tion. We do not ask whether the soul would 
prosper better that never heard preaching, or that 
never prayed; whether prayer or preaching are 
of the most importance in the abstract; — but 
whether, to a church assembled at an appointed 
time, in an appointed place, for public service 
and instruction, the prayers there dictated by 
the minister, and repeated by the congregation, 
are the only important or the most important 
object of their assembling? 

In endeavoring to solve this doubt by the 
Holy Scriptures, I find but little that speaks 
directly to the point, but much that bears upon 
it. I am not aware that there is more than one 
direct command for the assembling together of 
the church in the New Testament, namely, 
Heb. x. 25, where it is expressly said to be for 
the purpose of exhortation. The custom of the 
disciples, under the immediate inspiration of the 
Spirit, supplies the place of precept. In all the 
instances given, as I believe, of their being so 
assembled, the preaching of the apostles, with 
its effect, forms the prominent part of the rela- 
tion; accompanied of course by prayer. See 
Acts ii, and hi. By Acts xiii, it distinctly ap- 



* 



ON THE USE OF ORDINANCES. i63 

pears, that in the congregation of the people on 
the Sabbath-day, was the customary time for 
preaching; since, having heard Paul on one 
such occasion, they desired to hear him again 
"on the next Sabbath." Even the more 
general exhortations to prayer, not designating 
whether private or congregational, are fre- 
quently accompanied with an immediate allu- 
sion to preaching, as if they were always con- 
nected in the mind of the inspired writer; 
Eph. vi. 19; Col. iv. 3. And it was upon, or 
after preaching, that the great manifestations 
of the Spirit were made, to the conversion of 
many. 

We refer to the promises. The expectations 
of men are very apt to run counter to the pro- 
mises of God, as to the channels in which his 
grace will flow. The scriptures say, " that 
faith cometh by hearing; and how shall they 
hear without a preacher?" Rom. x. They say 
it is by the foolishness of preaching that " God 
will save them that believe." 1 Cor. i. 21. To 
preach was the great commission, so many times 
repeated by our Lord to his disciples, for the 
conversion of the world; to which he most 
directly promises his accompanying Spirit. Yet 
men commonly affect to think the preaching of 
the gospel of very little moment, while they 



164 ON THE USE OP ORDINANCES. 

expect from baptism, the Lord's Supper, and 
other divine ordinances, almost supernatural 
effects; which God in his word has certainly 
not attached to them, though He instituted 
them, and blessed them, and continually diffuses 
his Holy Spirit through them. 

To descend from the greater authority to the 
less, our own church certainly does not place 
the value of preaching so low as do some of 
her members. When she gives it among the 
first instructions to the sponsors of the bap- 
tised child, that they shall " call upon him to 
hear sermons," it cannot be meant that they 
should tell hiin, as I have heard children told, 
that it does not signify what the sermon is; we 
go to church, or rather ought to go — for the 
appeal to fact will seldom hold good — for the 
sake of the prayers. Every one conversant with 
ecclesiastical history must be aware, that neglect 
of preaching has always marked the declension 
of the churches. In the Romish church preach- 
ing is comparatively rare; and the eagerness of 
protestants to hear sermons, and to select good 
preachers, has always been a subject of ridicule 
with them; while, in attendance upon public 
ministrations, they are more exact than we are. 
In the lowest and most corrupted state of the 
church of England, that of the two reigns pre- 



ON THE USE OF ORDINANCES. 165 

ceding the Commonwealth, preaching was al- 
most discontinued in the Sabbath service; the 
attempt to revive it by the puritans was the first 
signal for opposition and opprobrium. Even 
we may remember when the tone of religion, 
in the establishment, was very different from 
that which now pervades it. One sermon of 
ten minutes' length on the Sunday was then 
considered quite long enough for polite ears. 
On the other hand, every revival of religion in 
the churches has been marked by increase of 
zeal in the ministry, and taste in the people for 
the exhibition of the gospel in the pulpit; at 
once the cause and the consequence of the out- 
pouring of the Spirit. Wherever there has 
been earnest, faithful, and assiduous preaching, 
the effects of God's accompanying Spirit have 
been seen; while from the mere performance 
of the service, and the administration of ordi- 
nances, unaccompanied by gospel sermons, I am 
not aware that such results have at any time 
been witnessed. 

Our mistake, if it is one, is of the greatest con- 
sequence ; for it follows of course that if the ser- 
mon is not an important part of the service, it does 
not signify what sermon we hear, the prayers 
being al ways the same. In this persuasion many 
an una wakened spirit has slept the sleep of death, 



I 



166 ON THE USE OP ORDINANCES. 

and never heard the Gospel's gladdening sound. 
In the regenerated heart, most happily, truth is 
too strong for fiction ; feeling is too strong for 
convention ; and the Spirit within us eventually 
breaks through the shackles which the world 
has bound about us. The hunger of the awa- 
kened soul becomes too importunate to be stayed 
with names, and the parish boundary grows in- 
distinct as the heavenly vision opens. But per- 
suading ourselves that we ought not to attach 
so much importance to the sermon as we begin 
to feel we do, the divine impulse is resisted, and 
the healthful appetite is refused the aliment es- 
pecially appointed for its sustenance. Or it is 
fed sparingly, uncertainly, and as it were by 
stealth, with a thousand misgivings lest we be 
doing wrong. We will hear a good preacher in 
the week-day, or the Sabbath evening, as an in- 
dulgence ; but it is not necessary; we must still 
make the prayers our object. Meantime the 
soul is famished ; and as the ascetic of other days 
looked with complacency on his shrivelled limbs, 
and called his abstinence self-denial ; so do we 
upon the lifeless, joyless, inanity into which the 
spirit sinks, for want of the nourishment we be- 
lieve it our duty to abstain from. If it is our 
duty, well: God will supply by other means, 
whatever his law or his providence withholds : 



ON THE USE OF ORDINANCES. 167 

but if, when he spreads a table, we will not sit 
at it; when he scatters manna round our tents, 
we will not go out to gather it, because it is not 
in the right place, or not in the right company; 
because we think that we can do without it, or 
that what man provides is better; God must not 
be expected to come out of his place to adminis- 
ter to our need. Of what immense importance, 
then, is it, to be assured whether this established 
maxim be right or wrong. 

Inclination will not always be on the side of 
spiritual things, overborne with difficulty by a 
sense of duty. It is true, the regenerated soul 
does always like, and must like, the sound of the 
Gospel, and the preaching of the truth: but alas ! 
in our imperfect hearts, there are many other 
loves beside the love of truth. There is the love 
of ease, and the love of approbation, and the 
taste for scenery, and the taste for society: and 
the time may come, and does come, when these 
must be sacrificed, or the preaching of the Gos- 
pel be dispensed with. Then the established 
maxim comes in on nature's side. It is a great 
privation, certainly, to be without a Gospel min- 
istry; but it is not essential: the prayers are the 
same, and the prayers are the important part of 
the service. Our servants — for whose spiritual 
sustenance, as far as depends on us, we are as 



168 ON THE USE OF ORDINANCES. 



our 



responsible as for their daily bread — and 
children, whom we are pledged to bring up in 
the nurture and admonition of the Lord — we 
take them where we know they learn nothing, 
retain nothing, from the sermon; and where, 
perhaps, if they retained all they hear from the 
pulpit, it would not be truth enough to save 
their souls. But it suits our convenience — they 
hear nothing bad — and there is the church ser- 
vice, which is "all that signifies." And thus, 
in the choice of our residence, in the selection of 
a place of worship, in our family arrangements 
from Sabbath to Sabbath, that which should 
take precedence of every other consideration, 
the invigoration of the divine life within us, by 
means that God has especially appointed for that 
end, and the welfare of the souls committed to 
our guidance, are postponed to a thousand con- 
siderations of earthly interest and convenience; 
as if it were the most indifferent of all things; a 
mere gratification which it is meritorious to fore- 
go; and every misgiving of the heart is silenced 
by the undisputed assertion, that " we ought to 
go to church to pray and not to hear." Is it 
not time to examine on what that opinion is 
founded? 



ON THE USE OF READING. 

It cannot, I suppose, be doubted, that reading 
is the most powerful instrument in existence for 
good or evil. It is that which God himself has 
made use of in the revelation of his will. A 
book is the medium of communication, with his 
creatures which He has chosen; all previous me- 
thods having tended to its completion and been 
merged in it when completed. The faculty or 
combination of faculties, thus peculiarly marked 
with the divine authority, and consecrated to so 
high a purpose, is not only placed beyond all 
doubt as to its utility, but attains the character 
of a common duty and a common right. We 
feel that every man should be able to read, and, 
by the common claims of humanity, should 
have an opportunity afforded him to learn. We 
may justly say it is the will of God that man 
should read. But where have we a faculty so 
16 



170 ON THE USE OF READING. 

much misused, a power so preverted to the uses 
of iniquity? What sin, what vice is there, 
that hooks have not disseminated ! What evil 
have they not encouraged, and sin and misery- 
produced? We may well believe that when 
the great enemy of man took notice of the act 
of God, to make a book the instrument of 
greatest good, he also chose it for his chief in- 
strument of evil. Not one book — for then we 
should have remarked his work; but by pos- 
sessing himself of a faculty of which the influ- 
ence would be unlimited over the minds of men. 
I am persuaded that as far as the power of 
reading is in exercis , which is every day in- 
creasing, and already extended beyond all 
former experience, neither precept, nor habit, 
nor example, have an influence so powerful on 
the character as the books we read, or does so 
much give the tone to our thoughts and feelings. 
Of course the impress is the most easily taken, 
and is perhaps the most permanent, while the 
character is unformed and untempered by ex- 
perience: and minds of greater or less pliability 
offer different degrees of resistance to this influ- 
ence: but the e is no age at which it ceases, 
and no character entirely beyond its reac . : I 
believe there is no time at which it does not 



ON THE USE OP READING. 171 

signify that we read; still admitting the great- 
est degree of difference between the young and 
the old, the wise and the simple. 

A peculiar feature of the present time is the 
inconsiderateness with which books are written 
and. published to the world. It savors, no 
doubt, of the general character of the age, this 
age of equality and universal suffrage, in which 
every man is to be fit for every thing, and set- 
ting aside all mental and circumstantial differ- 
ences, take upon himself to remove the Cre- 
ator's land-marks, and level all distinctions 
among his creatures. The aristocracy of lite- 
rature is in the same predicament, as that of 
rank and wealth: all will legislate, and all will 
write. In respect of talent, this is a most 
harmless sort of republicanism: it creates a 
supply, not only adequate in quantity, but 
suitable in kind, to the demands of this book- 
consuming age. Works too superficial for the 
studious, too inaccurate for the learned, and too 
frivolous for the thoughtful, have a reading 
world to which they are adapted, and through 
which they circulate no inconsiderable measure 
of useful knowledge and rational amusement. 
Clothed in purple and fine linen, we should be 
as wise to doubt the utility of frieze and fustian, 
as to decry at this time the rapid production 



172 ON THE USE OP READING. 

of inferior books. Those good old days, when 
men thought before they wrote, and knew 
before they taught — those days of hour glasses 
and night-lamps, and huge leathern folios, which 
sages sigh at the remembrance of, are the loss 
of the few at the demand of the many — a mere 
despoiling of the privileged classes, under the 
radical influence of blue ink and steel pens, 
month. y magazines and quarterly reviews. 
Beautiful, in every step of its progress, is the 
development of the Almighty's purpose; and 
who but must see that it is working now in no 
ordinary manner? The eye of taste and feeling 
looks with delight upon the morning — the 
golden sky, the deeply-colored clouds, the 
magnifying obscurity that ennobles some, while 
it veils more vulgar objects, or clothes with ficti- 
tious tints the little it discloses— and sees with 
reluctance the diminution of beauty as the morn- 
ing grows, the gradual dissipation of the charm 
before the opening day; the colorless clouds, 
the cold gray landscape, a thousand vulgar and 
unsightly objects discoverable by day-light. 
Thus the time seems coming upon the world 
when nothing shall pass for anything but what 
it is — when things most base will not hide 
themselves any longer, and things factitious 
must meet the light of truth. We do not like 



i 






ON THE USE OF READING. 173 

it; but it must be so. Cl The night is far 
spent, the day is at hand;" God has his own 
disclosures now to make, and Satan grows 
impatient of disguise because his time is short. 
Instead of repining for the stronger lights and 
shades of by-gone days, we must see to walk as 
children of the light, in the exercise of such 
discernment as the times require; they do re- 
quire, from Christians in particular, the nicest 
discrimination: shall I not say above all from 
Christian women? We, more than anyone, have 
been gainers by the change before spoken of; 
from infancy to age the whole character of a 
woman's reading has been revolutionised, and 
great indeed has been the gain, since we took 
our school-room degrees upon Mrs. Chapone's 
religion, hnd Madame Genlis' morality, and 
pursued our studies among the tattered stock- 
books of a country library, with Blair's Ser- 
mons for Sunday reading, and Sturm's Reflec- 
tions for our daily bread. Every branch of 
study has been brought within our reach, 
adapted to every age and capacity, and made 
accessible in almost every place and circum- 
stance of life. I have said that in one sense 
the increase of writers is a great public benefit. 
But Satan knows his time. Since the darkness 
of ignorance avails him no longer, he makes use 
16* 



174 ON THE USE OF READING. 

of the very influx of the light, to blind the eyes 
and confuse the intellects of men. On general 
subjects the multiplication of inferior books is 
a benefit, because they all communicate a con- 
siderable measure of real knowledge, and the 
mistakes and insufficiencies do no harm. Not 
so when they bear upon religion; when the 
truths of God are to be tampered with, imper- 
fectly exhibited, ignorantly mis-stated, or par- 
tially obscured. In religion the inconsiderate- 
ness with which books are published is a most 
awful character of the times. The mischief is 
incalculable; it might seem harsh to say who 
is the great instigator of it — but certain it is, 
that pious men are very often the instruments, 
while the young, the devoted, the unsuspicious 
are the most certain victims. Job wished his 
enemy had written a book, because that which 
is written remains; cannot be recalled; cannot 
be evaded or denied; stands exposed to the 
scrutiny of time and truth, and must abide the 
shame of the detection. Job would scarcely 
escape this satisfaction now. The merest child 
in faith, just born anew into the spiritual world, 
does not hesitate to write, and publish too, 
against the most established truths. Does the 
fresh student of divinity but catch a glimpse of 
something he never saw before, the world need 






ON THE USE OF READING. 175 

not wait for the discovery till he has looked 
again: it matters not what novelty, what error, 
or what delusion seizes upon the mind, the 
press is ready; it must be published first, and 
examined and retracted at our leisure. Who 
thinks of the indelible, ineffaceable characters of 
a printed book, or how many may take the poi- 
son that will never take the antidote? or how 
many those rash words will lead astra^, when 
he who writes them has repented and been for- 
given? Who cares through what far year the 
stumbling-block may lie upon the path of life, 
and many a simple one break his peace upon it, 
when he who put it there is gone to heaven? 
There are men, distinguished men, must we not 
say pious men — amongst us, who publish altered 
opinions every year, and take no shame, and 
feel no penitence for the mischief they have 
done! Do they indeed know it? Must we 
take them (or no wiser and no worse than idle 
children, who amuse themselves with muddying 
the pure water-springs, thoughtless of any harm 
to those that drink? My object is the reader, 
not the writers, of religious books; but readers 
may be writers too, and I would only say to 
such a one — It is a serious thing to write a 
book, a pamphlet, an article, in a religious 
magazine. Suppose there be error in it — it 



176 ON THE USE OP READING. 

goes where you have never been, and will 
remain when you have ceased to be. It goes 
to the sick female on her bed of pain, and 
breaks the little peace her prayers have gained: 
no one is near to tell her it is not true. It 
reaches the widowed and the broken-hearted, 
and blots the texts on which their souls are 
stayed; they cannot try the value of your criti- 
cism. Ii crosses the afflicted while the storm 
is raging, and takes them to shelter under a 
falling roof; no moment for them to look to 
the foundations. It meets the awakening 
soul's first cry for help, answers it with fictions, 
and feeds it upon ashes; no time for them to 
discriminate and refuse it. It steals into the 
dwelling of domestic love, and fills it with dis- 
cord and dissension. It stirs the docile spirit 
against its teachers, and lures the little ones 
from the shepherd's arms. It is a pestilent 
wind in God's own garden, dropping mildew 
on the fairest fruits. You cannot help this; 
you are sincere in your persuasions, and must 
propagate the truth. The truth ! you never 
thought of it till yesterday — yon will have 
changed your mind to-morrow. Rather wait 
till years of trial have put your discovery to 
proof — till hours of study, and days and nights 
of prayer have given fixedness and stability to 



ON THE USE OF READING. 177 

your opinions : wait at least till your experi- 
ence bears some proportion to that of the saints 
before you, from whose track you are turning 
the footsteps of the simple. " Ye did run well; 
who hath hindered you?" What names of 
earth might be answered to that question ? "I 
would," says the apostle, " that they were even 
cut off which trouble you." Seeing what I 
have seen of the consequences of such presump- 
tuous and precipitous writing, sooner should my 
right hand forget its cunning, than I would give 
publicity to a novel opinion, a peculiar doc- 
trine, or a new interpretation of Scripture, until 
years of examination, thought and prayer, had 
given the weight of experience to the vanity of 
newness. 

All do not feel this; and we can only repeat 
our warning — "Take heed what you read." 
Whatever was said in a former paper, respect- 
ing the hearing of the Gospel, might justly be 
repeated here. There is such a thing as an 
ungodly curiosity in religion — a desire to look 
into error as such; I mean with a full persuasion 
that it is error: a pursuit for which the love of 
truth cannot be pleaded as an excuse. No 
doubt there are those whose duty it is to 
examine error, they that may refute it, and 
defend the weak against its inroads. So is it 



178 ON THE USE OF READING. 

the duty of the physician to brave an infected 
atmosphere, and watch the symptoms of the 
fever or the cholera; but who runs after him 
thither for the mere purpose of seeing what is 
the matter? They had better do it — the young, 
the unstable, and the simple minded, had far 
better go there, where they can but kill the 
body, than expose themselves to the influence 
of every adventurous writer on religion, whose 
novelties will ruin their spiritual health, if not 
eternally destroy their souls. 

Unhappily, and. most perilously at the present 
day, beside what is imprudently examined as 
error, there is a great deal of reading in which 
truth is honestly sought, whilst error is uncon- 
sciously imbibed. The levelling tide has here 
worked us mischief indeed, bearing down every 
landmark by which the steps of the ignorant 
might be guided. The character of the author, 
the popularity of his writings, the church that 
he belongs to, or the creed that he subscribes, 
no longer proves anything as to the tendency of 
his doctrine, and the spiritual influence of his 
book. In giving warning of the danger, we 
feel, fully feel, that we can set no buoy upon 
the rock to tell with certainty where it is: we 
are truly here among the shifting sands that 
mariners so much dread. If we may continue 



ON THE USE OF READING. 179 

our nautical illustration, we should say to the 
inexperienced, avoid the straits and keep the 
open sea. Read the works on which your 
fathers fed, and lived in righteousness, and 
died in joy. Choose the hooks in which there 
is nothing new, nothing to turn you from the 
beaten path, but all to hasten your advance 
upon it. Be suspicious even of new words, if 
they affect to designate old things, and there 
be no Scripture warrant for therhange. Above 
all things give heed to the manner of the artist, 
what objects fill the foreground of the picture 
— this, if we had skill enough, would always 
guide us right. If the great, the vital, the es- 
tablished truths of the Gospel be not the most 
prominently and immediately visible, it is no 
canvass for the inexperienced eye to gaze upon, 
whatever be its beauty. If Christ, the author 
and finisher of our salvation — his Deity, in- 
volving and involved in his atonement — Christ 
crucified, the stone of stumbling to which 
human reason never will be reconciled, exposed 
in all its bare offensiveness, and the Spirit's 
work, inseparable from it, but subordinated to 
it, because it is that very Spirit's work to testify 
of Christ: if these have to be sought for in 
the misty background of the picture, while a 
host of disputable figures occupy its front, 



180 ON THE USE OP READING. 

false in their magnitude if in nothing else; it 
is no safe study for the learner's eye — turn at 
once away, it will lead farther than you see, or 
perhaps than the writer sees at present — reason 
and taste now only veil the cross to make it 
less obtrusive — presently they will bury it quite 
out of sight. 

I have one class of books particularly, though 
not exclusively in my mind, which are multi- 
plying upon us fearfully — a half Christian, half 
Socinian race — a sort of reasoning, philoso- 
phizing Gospel, of which, as far as it prevails, 
it may well be said " Then is the offence of the 
cross ceased:" the world is delighted with 
them, and so I can believe the prince of this 
world is; but the acceptance they have found 
among the followers of Him whose glory they 
have veiled, is indeed a fearful and affecting 
wonder. Their wide circulation is no matter 
for surprise; it is referable to the cause before 
alluded to; a supply is required for a new 
demand. It is not the pious only, or the well- 
instructed in the truth of God, who now re- 
quire religious books: every body reads reli- 
gious books: but every body does not want 
the full gospel in them. There is a very large 
class of persons who have found or made a path 
between the broad road that leadeth to de- 



ON THE USE OF READING. 181 

struction and the narrow path that leads to 
eternal life: they want, as well they may, a 
medium truth, between the inflexible doctrines 
of the cross, as taught and walked in by those 
who have separated themselves, and that doc- 
trinal indifference which leaves every man to 
walk by the light of his own conscience. They 
must have a measure of evangelical truth — 
they must have a Christ. What can unbelief 
demand, that Satan will not devise to keep it 
satisfied, short of the full knowledge of the 
truth; the full exhibition of the son of God, 
the Saviour of mankind? 

" Touch not, taste not, handle not." The 
provision of this neutral ground is no more safe 
for the Christian than its atmosphere. I do 
not say he cannot feed upon it, because there 
is much in these writings that is good and 
pleasant to the taste; but I am sure he cannot 
be in health- upon it: his appetite will be vitiated 
and his spirit sickened, at once from want and 
disrelish of more strong and simple truth. 
Above all, let such as are strong in the faith, 
take heed how they circulate such books among 
the weak and undiscerning. 



17 



A WORD TO WOMEN. 



God himself has decided, that the thing which 
cannot consist with his holy service is the 
service of Mammon: that the two passions 
which cannot subsist in the same bosom, are 
the love of God, and the love of this world. 
Against such authority, we must not admit 
they can be reigning together in peaceable 
possession of one heart. We may see them, 
indeed, and we may feel them, making bitter 
war against each other's mastery, and pledged 
to mortal conflict; but we must not think we 
see them in another's bosom, or our own, sit- 
ting side by side in amicable union of their 
power. On the word of God, it is impossible. 

As far as the mammon of this world is con- 
fined to the desire of getting money, females 
are very little exposed to its influence; and, 
perhaps, any remonstrance upon the subject 
may seem to come rather ill from us, who are 



A WORD TO WOMEN. 183 

so little experienced in the temptation. But 
I have often thought women are not sufficiently 
aware, or not sufficiently mindful, of the ex- 
tent to which they are the occasion of a sin 
they are spared the commission of: how deeply 
they are guilty of their fathers' and their hus- 
bands' condemnation in this particular. What 
goads on the tradesman or the merchant to 
increase his income; or if he cannot increase 
it, to outlive it to his ruin? It is not he, for 
the most part, who drives in the carriage, or 
enjoys the mansion. Sometimes it is his pride 
that seeks the elevation of his family; and 
pride is within the reach of female influence 
to animate or discourage: but much oftener 
it is his affectionate indulgence, that loves to 
gratify his wife and children with a thousand 
superfluities. It is because he hears at home 
that his establishment must be increased, and 
the expense of his children's education cannot 
be restricted: they must dress, they must 
associate, they must learn. He does not tell 
them, in return — it would be better if he did 
— how many anxious hours he endures, how 
many doubtful speculations he engages in, to 
meet these necessities; or if it be short of 
that how his thoughts are engrossed, and his 
soul pre-occupied; when, if a less income 



184 A WORD TO WOMEN. 

would suffice, he might have found opportunity 
for prayer, and room for God. Many a parent's 
heart need not have broken, many a tender 
family need not have been destitute, if, on the 
first symptom of declension in his affairs, or 
diminution in his profits, the husband had had 
the courage to require from his family the re- 
linquishment of their superfluities. And why 
had he not? but because he knew their hearts 
were set upon them; their happiness was in 
them; the privation of luxuries and expenses 
they were accustomed to, would be an infliction 
of pain and sorrow, which he determines to 
postpone, in hope of better days. How dif- 
ferently would his fond heart beat at such a 
time — aye, or his proud heart, if it should be 
so, — had he reason to believe that his wife and 
daughters did not want these vanities; that 
these superfluities were their playthings, not 
their bliss — that they dressed themselves, and 
dressed their houses, and dressed their tables to 
meet his wishes, and become his station: but 
attaching no importance to either. And if he 
knew this when he is getting money, as well 
as when he is losing it, Mammon would lose 
his strongest hold on many a generous bosom. 
The hours of toil would be abridged, the canker- 
ing anxiety would be stayed, and ambition 



A WORD TO WOMEN. 185 

itself be made ashamed. None but the most 
sordid spirits will covet wealth that nobody- 
values, and vanities that nobody cares for. Yet 
many a woman, must I say Christian woman, 
sees her husband's health endangered, his peace 
of mind disturbed, and, above all, his spiritual 
interests neglected, for the acquisition of this 
world's good j and never lets him see that she 
loathes the trumpery which deprives her of 
her intercourse with him, and him of his inter- 
course with God. 



17* 



AMEN. 



Should a learned divine from Mexico or Japan, 
if any such there are, ignorant of our language, 
and a stranger to our religion, enter by chance 
some place of worship during divine service — 
supposing him always to be a profound thinker 
— it appears to me, there is one circumstance 
that would very much puzzle him; and I 
scarcely see to what possible conclusion his un- 
instructed philosoply could bring him, when he 
should hear the devout tones of the minister, 
and the solemn responses of the people, which, 
without understanding the words, he could not 
fail to perceive were devotional, interrupted 
every few minutes by the heartless discordant 
shout which constitutes the Jlmen in most of 
our public assemblies. A part of the devotion 
he certainly could not think it, from the tone 
of unconcern in which it is uttered, if uttered 
at all, by the greater part of the congregation: 



AMEN. 1S7 

while the peculiar loudness of the reverberation, 
from the clerk to the charity school, would 
make it appear to be a ceremony of no ordinary 
importance. 

The thoughts of a Japanese doctor do not 
signify; and perhaps it does not signify, that 
the few persons whom custom has not made 
insensible to its effect, should be painfully dis- 
turbed by this unseemly chorus to their heart's 
deep tones of prayer and penitence, and praise. 
But if there is one person in our congregations, 
who from inconsideration repeats that word 
mechanically, and with less solemn feeling, than 
the rest of the responses, may I not kindly sug- 
gest a consideration, whether the ear of Deity is 
not offended by the discordance? I do not 
profess myself a public reformer-, and the illi- 
terate ranks from which our clerks are neces- 
sarily taken, would perhaps make it impossible 
to require that they should seem to mean some- 
thing, by a sound they are hired to reiterate at 
given intervals. I leave it to those who know 
best, to determine how far it might be possible, 
without danger of innovation to the establish- 
ment, to get the key lowered. With the chil- 
dren of our schools, if teaching should fail to 
subdue the mechanical utterance by a feel- 
ing of devotion, it certainly might do something 



18S AMEN. 

to lower and modulate the sound. This by the 
way. My real intention is to awaken, in my- 
self and others, an increased sense of the 
solemnity and importance of this ejaculation, as 
it is repeated after every form of address to the 
Almighty. A feeling of devotion in every 
heart, would bring a tone of devotion on every 
lip; and the loud Jimen of our congregations, 
as well as the more suppressed ones in our family 
worship, would thus become a burst of sacred 
melody. 

The meaning of the word we all know. It is 
at once an affirmation and a consent: intended 
to express our firm assurance that the words 
uttered are true, and our entire willingness that 
they should be true: or after a form of suppli- 
cation, our earnest desire to be, and our assu- 
rance that we shall be, heard. " So be it." " So 
shall it be." The authority for the use of it 
we also know: the frequent command of God 
in the Old Testament, where it is generally 
affixed to his curses and threatenings: and the 
example of Jesus and his disciples, by whom it 
is more frequently connected with promises and 
prayer. Of its perpetual occurrence in our 
services, after every address whether of prayer 
or praise, or confession, if there is any historical 
or ecclesiastical explanation, I confess myself 






AMEN. 189 

totally ignorant of it; and speak from the im- 
mediate suggestions of my own mind, when I 
suppose it to imply that God, dealing with us 
as free agents and reasonable beings, requires 
the acquiescence of the will in all that He 
enjoins, and does not accept without it even 
our obedience. When He calls us to confession, 
it is not enough that we say at his bidding, and 
believe on his statement, that we are miserable 
sinners, and there is no health in us, and no help 
for us, but in his mercy — with an understanding 
mind and a consenting heart, it is necessary 
that Ave say " Amen" to this humiliating truth: 
conscious that it is so, and willing that it should 
be so. When we rehearse before him the 
principles of our faith, it is not enough that we 
yield submission to the method of salvation 
there described; and the truths therein set forth 
— our consent must accompany our assent — 
Amen — " so-it is" — "so would we have it be." 
And in our prayers; when we ask protection 
from our enemies, defence from danger, and 
supply for our necessities, the word retains its 
entire meaning still; by the reiteration of it we 
profess not only to desire that so it may be, but 
to be assured that so it will be. If the word 
be affixed to the threatenings of God's law, to 
deprecations of his anger, to predictions of his 



190 AMEN. 

vengeance, it implies assent to their justice 
persuasion of their certainty, and full consen 
to the terms on which they are either to be 
suffered or escaped. And when our language 
has been of praise and glory and exaltation to 
God, to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the 
offices ascribed to them, the Amen is signifi- 
cant of a heart glad and grateful to believe them 
what they are said to be: constrained, and not 
compelled to receive the benefits, and acknow- 
ledge them in the manner described. 

If such is the deep importance of this word, 
it is surely no sound to be uttered carelessly. 
It is, on our part, like the affixing of a seal to 
a legal instrument, by which we agree to what- 
ever it contains: which no man does inconsi- 
derately. What if our careless, false amens, a 
hundred and a hundred times repeated, be 
written against us in the books of heaven! 
When at the last we attempt to plead our igno- 
rance, our mistakes and misconceptions, may it 
not well be said to us that day by day, in solemn 
assembly before our Maker, we acknowledged, 
accepted, and approved these things, affixing as 
it were our signature to the writing that con- 
demns ns? This will be so said to thousands: 
and fellow sinners, who have echoed back our 
false amens, and angels who trembled when they 



; 

3 



AMEN. ]91 

listened to them, and devils who stupified our 
senses while we uttered them, will be there to 
witness that they heard it. 

Once more, let us dwell upon the value of 
this word: and surely we shall never again utter 
it in carelessness. Perhaps the power to pro- 
nounce it truly constitutes the difference be- 
tween those who pray, and those who say 
prayers, yet pray not, God has made known 
his will to man, disclosing, of the past, the 
present, and the future, all that it is necessary 
we should know. Man does not like the disclo- 
sure. He does not like that the sin he loves 
should merit everlasting death — he does not 
like to be treated as a bankrupt debtor, a men- 
dicant, and a culprit — he is averse to the state 
of helpless dependence assigned him; and, 
above all, averse to give up his will, and give up 
his glory to another, and be nothing. He sees 
no fitness, wisdom, or propriety in this state of 
things: but rather a position injurious and 
degrading to himself; on God's part a claim 
without justice or reason. When, therefore, 
by the custom of Christian worship, we come 
to acknowledge these things, the natural heart 
refuses its amen. The utmost it can subjoin, 
is an unwilling submission: "If it is so, so it 
must be" — we cannot say, " content. " Can they 



192 AMEN. 

say it, who, proudly contentious against reveale 
truth, submit it to the scrutiny and decision o 
their own reason? Can they say it, who are s 
much in love with the things of time and sense 
that they would part with God himself to keep 
them, and can scarcely spare a thought from 
them for him? Can they say amen, who never 
felt the burthen of their sin, its bondage or its 
deserts? The proud, the confident, the righ- 
teous in {heir own eyes, the earthly-minded, 
the careless, the unholy — these may all breathe 
the word, but cannot mean it. There are those, 
on the other hand, whose hearts may have been 
too cold, their thoughts too vagrant, in the 
prayer: there may come after it a self-con- 
demning feeling, that it has been unworthily 
preferred: and yet they can affix to it an amen 
so full so willing, so sincere, it bursts forth from 
the heart, like tones of melody from the stricken 
wire. 



i 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION IN THE 
RESPECTABLE CLASSES. 



PART I. 

WITH REFERENCE TO THE GENERAL POSITION OF FEMALES IN 
SOCIETY. 

How much more wise is God than man. Deity- 
prepares everything for the situation it is to fill, 
and fits everything for the place it is to occupy. 
The tree of colder climes is provided with pro- 
tecting buds, that those of warmer countries do 
not require. J The animal that is lightly covered 
at the tropics, in arctic regions wears a coat of 
fur. Every flower is adapted to the season it 
is to blow in, and the soil from which it is to 
draw its nourishment. All the works of Deity, 
in short, have a specific purpose, and are adapted 
to the end they are to serve. Man does not 
profit as he might do by the divine example: 
he works, as it were, at random, without exactly 
18 



194 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

knowing what he aims at, or taking his mea- 
sures in connection with his end. 

It has been suggested as a probable reason 
why the ancients so much excelled us in archi- 
tectural productions, that the sculptor and the 
architect were one; the site, the proportions, and 
the ornaments of the building were one great 
conception of the mind, and each part executed 
as a portion of a whole. The statue designed 
for elevation, was not proportioned to look well 
upon the base; th ■.-> ornament, exquisitely beau- 
tiful in the workshop, did not prove without 
interest in its place; and thus, with each sepa- 
rate workman's labor, well and wisely done, 
the result was not, as it so often is now, a 
whole without fitness or effect. Something 
similar, I think, may be observed in works of 
greater moment; in structures that concern the 
welfare of society and the happiness of man. If 
we would form, and still more when we would 
execute, a good plan of education, it is not 
enough that it be considered in detail: that 
this thing is pleasing, and that thing is useful, 
and the other is customary; this may be all 
very true in the abstract, and sufficiently well 
effected, and yet our moral edifice be totally 
unfit for its purpose, and unbecoming its posi- 
tion. It is of the first importance to consider 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 195 

education not as an end, but as a means to an 
end, and that a clearly defined one; before we 
can determine how our children should be 
brought up, we must fully understand the time, 
and place, and duties, for which education is to 
prepare them. 

Another important consideration, not seldom 
left out of our calculations, is the material for 
our workmanship, the substance to be wrought 
upon, and the tools we have to work with. If 
we mistake in this, every effort will be an error, 
and every scheme a failure; and because the 
nature of man has been mistaken, and his 
powers and dispositions falsely estimated, many 
plans and systems of education carefully and 
consistently carried out, have been totally una- 
vailing to their end, or productive of its con- 
traries. Many a marble palace has been in 
conception reared of the readily moulded clay- 
stone, and -no few artists have broken their 
tools upon the indurated rock, on which they 
were too fine to make an impression. To de- 
termine the best method of education, it is not 
enough to know what our children ought to be, 
and what by the appointment of providence 
they are to be: it is indispensable that we 
know rightly what they are, and what extent of 
power is in our hands affecting them. 



196 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

Whatever be the defects of female education 
in this country at the present time, I am of 
opinion that it is greatly better than at any 
former period. I am confirmed in this persua- 
sion by a reference to the well-known work of 
Mrs. Hannah More, the foundation stone, per- 
haps, of our improvement. The authority of 
her name, and her intimate knowledge of the 
world in which she lived, leaves no ground for 
doubting, that the account she gives of female 
education half a century ago, is a correct one. 
If so, we cannot, I think, but congratulate our- 
selves upon the change; or rather, be grateful 
to heaven for the progress already made to- 
wards improvement. " In particular, I observe," 
she says, " that the greatest deficiency is in the 
middle classes, while the highest and the lowest 
are of better promise." No doubt, since she 
says so, this was at that time true; but it is so 
obviously otherwise now, that it is very diffi- 
cult to suppose it: by all present symptoms in 
the body corporate, one should conclude that 
the vitality, originated and hitherto concen- 
trated at the heart, was but just now beginning 
to animate the palsied extremities. I would be 
understood to speak exclusively of females, 
when I say, that within the memory of man, 
the extremest ignorance and imbecility of mind 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 197 

was to be looked for in quite the highest classes; 
because the minds of the very lowest, untaught 
as they formerly were, gain always some little 
vigor by the stern realities of their condition. 
I am willing to hope that Mrs. M ore's picture 
of female education would scarcely prove a 
likeness now, even among the votaries of 
fashion; but I feel sure that it can find its 
resemblance no where else; for which, perhaps, 
the world is to no one more indebted than to 
herself. 

The education of women must ever be 
ordered with relation to their destinies: whe- 
ther it be their general and universal destiny in 
the creation of God, their national destinies 
under the varieties of human legislation, or their 
particular destinies in the several gradations of 
society. On the first point the word of God, 
and the works of God, must be our guides; 
what by revelation He has declared that women 
are to be, and what in their natural endowments 
He has made them. Between these there is a 
perfect agreement; if ever they seem at vari- 
ance, it is probably the result of education, 
counteracting, instead of subserving the designs 
of God. If He, assigning to woman a subor- 
dinate station, had given her equal powers, or 
even a capability, by culture, of becoming 
18* 



198 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

equal, his works and his word would be at 
variance. On the other hand, designing her to 
be to man a solace and a helpmate upon earth, 
and in eternity his blest companion, if He had 
made woman so imbecile and helpless, that she 
could be only man's burthen, or his play-thing, 
there would be again no unity in the work of 
God and his declared intentions. And cer- 
tainly there will be none between his works 
and ours, if we insist on counteracting those 
intentions either way. Again, as God's work 
and will in this respect are one, so are they 
permanent and immutable. The place of 
woman in creation does not change with change 
of time and place, neither do her natural com- 
parative endowments. If ever she has con- 
trived to change her position, or has been ren- 
dered unsuitable to it, it has been human work- 
manship, opposed to divine providence, and 
in a measure counteracting the provision of 
nature: but in a measure only; for whatever 
has succeeded in giving to women a different 
place from that appointed for them, has failed 
to make them fit for it. Thus far we have a 
basis firm and immovable on which to build. 
God has assigned to woman a destiny, and 
endowed her for it: His word will instruct us 
what it is; it is our first duty to observe it, and 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 199 

as far as possible by education to prepare her 
for it. On which I would observe, in the way 
of application, that this is not done, when edu- 
cation tends in any way to prepare women for- 
the path of publicity, or to incline them to it; 
or induces them, under pretext of enabling 
them, to become prominent in any thing that is 
essentially public. I must speak plainly, for 
innovation on this point has come from where 
it should not. Referring again to the venerable 
authority, for such it now is, that I before quoted, 
I observe that Hannah More did not so much 
as foresee the predicament at which we have 
arrived: while she warns us against the dan- 
gers that attend the public career of genius, 
and takes alarm at the then threatened intru- 
sion of women upon the field of politics, it 
never occurs to her that they are in danger on 
more hallowed ground: she even congratulates 
them on their safety; she says, "as women are 
naturally more affectionate than fastidious, they 
are likely both to read and hear with a less 
critical spirit than men: they will not be on the 
watch to detect errors, so much as to gather 
improvement; they have seldom that hardness 
which is acquired by dealing deeply in books 
of controversy, but are more inclined to the 
perusal of works which quicken the devotional 



200 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 



of doubt 



feelings, than to such as awaken a spirit 
and scepticism. They are less disposed to con- 
sider the compositions they read, as materials 
on which to ground objections and answers, 
than as helps to faith and rules of life." 

If this was so in the days of the good king 
George, we must make a comparison, alas! not 
this time in our favor. Again: "Women," 
says Mrs. More, " are also from their domestic 
habits in possession of more leisure and tran- 
quility for religious pursuits, as well as secured 
from those difficulties and strong temptations to 
which men are exposed in the tumult of a bust- 
ling world. Their lives are more regular and 
uniform, less agitated by the passions, the 
businesses, the contentions, the shocks of opin- 
ions, and the opposition of interests which 
divide society and convulse the world."* This 
gifted writer was not gifted with " the second 
sight" it seems. She never anticipated other 
bustle than that of routs and ball-rooms; other 
shocks of opinions than those of whig and tory, 
in which women might be induced to merge 
their mental tranquillity and domestic leisure. 
How could she guess that the names of women 
would be heard amid the tumult of a distracted 

* Strictures on Modern Education, ch. 14. 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 201 

church; and their pious occupation oblige them 
to be visible every where — except at home. 

Further, I think the divine ordination with 
respect to women is not consulted, when it is 
attempted to give them what may properly be 
called a masculine education: I mean an edu- 
cation similar in its aim, and similar in the 
plans pursued, to that which is adapted to our 
boys. I do not mean to complain of any thing 
that has been done hitherto: I really think that 
in respect of this, every change has been a step 
towards improvement, without any appearance 
of passing the legitimate boundary. But we 
know not what we may be coming to. It is not 
long since I read a paper in a well-known reli- 
gious periodical, recommending a sort of public 
education for girls, similar to some modern 
establishments for boys; for the purpose, as I 
understood it, of getting rid of certain home- 
loving, home-becoming propensities, apt to be 
contracted by home education, something that 
we call shyness, when it does not suit our argu- 
ment to call it modesty. It is true, this seemed 
but a faint murmur from some powerless inno- 
vator, which waked no reverberations; but it is 
no harm if the warning comes before the dan- 
ger — "the previous blast foretells the coming 
storm." Our tide runs all one way; and every 



202 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

little tributary stream is making for the over- 
whelming flood; many a useful barrier, many 
a safe division of the ground, has already dis- 
appeared, and we know not where the levelling 
torrent is to be stayed. I shall not pursue 
the subject to particulars which may more pro- 
perly recur hereafter, but merely observe that it 
is impossible that the education of boys and girls 
ought to be the same, when providence has 
made their destinies so different. 

And surely we contravene the will of heaven 
no less, if by education we do not enable 
women to occupy the station that is assigned 
them; if by enfeebling their minds, and ener- 
vating their bodies, whether from indulgence or 
want of culture, we render them unfit for their 
station in society, or incompetent to the per- 
formance of their duties. This was done by 
our forefathers to an extent of which we still 
feel the consequences. The generation has not 
yet passed away in which a mother's competency 
was only to feed her children and to clothe 
them; while their moral and intellectual culture 
was committed to a hireling, not because the 
mother would not, but because she could not 
teach them: when the wife's sympathies were 
limited to household cares, and her conversation 
to domestic detail; not for want of love, but for 






ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 203 

want of capacity to share her husband's feel- 
ings, to understand his interests and pursuits, 
and be the partner of his thoughts, the help- 
mate indeed of all his joys and sorrows. I 
trust we are improving. I believe it has been 
discovered that money can hire a servant; but 
cannot buy an intelligent companion, a sympa- 
thising friend; can pay a sempstress, but not 
purchase maternal influence, or filial deference 
and respect. 



PART II. 



WITH REFERENCE TO THE PARTICULAR POSITION OF FEMALES IN 
THIS COUNTRY. 



National character is too marked a thing to 
have at any time passed unobserved by the stu- 
dent of human nature. To whatever the differ- 
ences are to be ascribed, whether to organic 
development, to the influence of climate, or to 
the perpetually accumulating effect of habit and 
association, bequeathed from age to age by the 
parent to the offspring; whether either of these 
or all conjointly, be the cause of dissimilarity, the 
fact is indisputable, that nations are as distinct 
in character as they are in language ; the closest 
communication, however it may modify, does 
not annihilate the distinction; if it does so in 
individual cases, it is sufficiently a novelty to 
call forth the remark, that you would take such 
a person for a foreigner. No one can have 
travelled without observing how the passing of 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 205 

an unmarked, invisible frontier, makes an en- 
tire change in the appearance and habits of the 
people among whom we are passing. This 
separation among the families of men, fruitful 
as it has been of their miseries, and originating, 
as no doubt it did, in their corruption, and the 
consequent confusion of their language, must 
be considered as the order of Providence in the 
present condition of mankind, working the good 
pleasure of the Lord, and subsisting in accord- 
ance with his will. 

It is the part of education to consult, not to 
contravene this distinctness of national charac- 
ter, comprehending as it does our national man- 
ners, tastes, and propensities, and the general 
tone of society in the country. In doing other- 
wise, we may succeed to mar the designs of na- 
ture, but seldom to effect our own. We may 
remove the cedar from its heights, and plant 
the myrtle in its place; but its stunted growth 
will soon make us aware of our mistake. We 
can bring the choice exotic to our green-house, 
and delight ourselves with its rarity; but we 
cannot make it indigenous in the soil: he would 
come short of his harvest, who should insist on 
sowing his field with some favorite produce of 
another zone. Man is wiser in every thing 
than in the treatment of himself; in all other 
19 



206 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 



md 



things he observes the leading of nature, and 
makes use of it to his own benefit; in himself 
he quarrels with it, and often works in oppo- 
sition to its dictates. National egotism has been 
a common subject of ridicule; and a boastful 
pretension to superiority is in all cases ridicu- 
lons. But if it be ridiculous to express a boast- 
ful preference of our country, it is to my mind 
disgusting to hear any one depreciate the 
character of his own nation. It has been in 
some circles a fashion to do so; and young peo- 
ple in particular, on the assumption of a few 
months' knowledge of other countries, and no 
knowledge at all of national character, have 
thought it very fine to depreciate every thing En- 
glish, and affect to consider the locality of their 
birth a misfortune. I will not incur the ridicule of 
egotism by extolling our national character, but 
this I will say, at all risks; if as English women 
we are not satisfied with our destinies, we are 
the most ungrateful of all people; and the most 
mistaken; for nothing but ignorance can make 
us insensible of our comparative advantages. 
Our very peculiarities, or let them be called 
defects, have their origin in our superior hap- 
piness. I believe we are less gay exactly be- 
cause we are more substantially happy; we are 
deficient in what is called amusement, because 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 207 

we have no need of it; we have less zest for 
social pleasures, precisely because we have more 
domestic and individual enjoyment; it is the 
healthful appetite that has seldomest recourse 
to artificial stimulants. 

However this may be, God has appointed us 
our place; to quarrel with it, is to rebel against 
his providence; to unfit ourselves for it, is to 
act in manifest opposition to his purpose. It 
is for England, for English duties, and English 
society, and English happiness, that we are to 
educate our children; if we will do otherwise, 
we shall succeed, no doubt, to disqualify them 
for these; so far nature may be overcome, and 
the designs of Providence be traversed, but no 
farther; we shall not succeed in possessing them 
with any thing instead. I cannot state too 
strongly what I think of the folly, in some cases 
the sin, of those parents who take or send their 
girls to the' continent for education, or for any 
part of it. The advantages they derive, and 
there are several, are exactly such as they do 
not want; their attainments such as nobody 
requires of them. A foreign-taught girl on her 
return to England, is like a merchant adven- 
turer, who should arrive under the line with an 
investment of furs and flannels; nobody wants 
their merchandise, and they are bankrupt in 



208 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

the plentitude of their acquisitions. It is no 
advantage to a woman to be different from those 
around her, least of all to be conspicuous in ex- 
ternal acquirements; even vanity is not gratified 
when she finds that her excelling pleases no- 
body but herself, That which society does 
not reciprocate, it does not require, and cannot 
estimate, and will not accept. Perhaps a girl 
acquires confidence, but in England we call it 
effrontery; she acquires gaiety, but we call it 
levity; she gets facility in talking, but we are 
a silent people; she gains in the coloring, but 
we value things by weight. This is English 
prejudice. Very likely, but it does not alter 
the predicament. Since foreign travel and more 
intercourse with other nations has enlarged our 
minds, we shall perhaps be liberal, and make 
excuses for our young friends on the ground of 
their foreign education; and then the result of 
their supposed advantages will be, to be excused. 
Meantime, at what price have they been pur- 
chased? At the risk of all that should be most 
valued, and most jealously guarded by a Chris- 
tian parent, at the certain cost of their own 
happiness when they return. If they perform 
their duties, it is uneasily; if they fill their place 
in society, it is without enjoyment: resuming 
English habits, they cannot resume again their 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 209 

English tastes, or regain their English happi- 
ness. And if it is painful to observe how much 
this practice of educating girls abroad obtains 
among the middle classes at the present time, 
it is to my mind an astonishment that it can 
find examples among religious people; a thing 
that before the fact I should have judged to be 
impossible. By the disciples of Christ there 
can be no aspiring after factitious advantages, 
and powers of display, and means of distinction 
in the world's society. They can have no am- 
bition to see their girls the best dancers, or the 
best dressers, or the best talkers, in the life of 
quietness and detachment for which they are 
intended. That the education thus acquired is 
more solidly good no one affects to think; and I 
believe no pious parent can affect to perceive no 
danger in it. The only excuse attempted is the 
cheapness; education in England is expen- 
sive. I shall not dwell upon this at present, 
because I may have occasion to recur to it in 
speaking of the destinies of women in their 
respective stations; but surely these are unbe- 
coming words on a believer's lips; admit the 
practice to be objectionable, and will the Chris- 
tian mother dare to say, that more education is 
necessary for her child than God has given her 
the means to pay for; and therefore she must 
IS* 



210 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 



take the risk? No one will say this, but does 
no one act it? 

An Englishwoman's peculiar destination is 
her home; it is there she has her duties, and 
there she has her enjoyments; and since it is 
so I cannot but believe that it is there she should 
have her education; certainly to this exclusively 
her education should be directed. Whatever 
can make her more agreeable, more useful, or 
more happy in private life, is properly a part of 
it, and I believe nothing else; for even in the 
highest ranks of life she is never avowedly 
called out of it. She need not brace her nerves 
and harden her heart, to act the Spartan 
mother; nor inure herself to danger, nor prac- 
tise herself in intrigue, to follow her husband 
to the camp or to the court; where if she ap- 
pears, it is as a partaker of his pomp and 
pleasures only, not of his serious occupations. 
Above the laboring classes, ease, leisure, and 
indulgence, are for the most part our happy 
portion; private connection draws a charmed 
circle round us, a little more or less extended, 
beyond which our duties seldom call us, the 
agitations of society seldom affect us, and even 
its opinion does not touch us. A woman, 
therefore, has no occasion for that knowledge 
of the world, as it is called, and preparation for 






ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 211 

life, which is supposed to be the advantage of 
a boy in public education, by which I mean 
education in large numbers. There is no need 
to blunt her sensibilities by collision, to destroy 
her delicacy by exposure, and her simplicity by 
a permature experience of human artifice and 
aggression. It was sometime thought neces- 
sary to a lady's accomplishment, that she should 
be taught to fence and fire at a mark; it is only 
a change in the weapons, if she must now learn 
confidence and independence of spirit in the field 
of rivalry and competition. 

Any degree of mental culture, not obtained 
at the expense of feminine habits and feelings, 
does not appear to me likely to unfit women 
for the duties and enjoyments of private life. 
The pleasures of knowledge are essentially 
private. Mere accomplishments may have a 
field of exhibition in company; solid instruc- 
tion very seldom has, and if it has, the better 
informed is the giver, not the receiver of the 
pleasure. In any company the most intellec- 
tual person is likely to feel the dullest, and be 
left the loser, since no one pays back his con- 
tribution to the common fund. The real en- 
joyment of knowledge is within the mind that 
possesses it, or in the near communion of equal 
minds. Its value is in its influence on the judg- 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

meat and the understanding; through them on 
the feelings and opinions; and by these ulti- 
mately on the life and conversation, like the 
covered spring, which is only perceptible by the 
freshness of the verdure that surrounds it. For 
this reason, I think no degree of solid instruc- 
tion of any kind, can unfit a woman for the 
duties and delights of private life. And lest 
my allusion to accomplishments should be mis- 
construed, I would add, that they are the 
flowers of our garden, which we do not reject 
because they bear no fruit; they make brighter a 
sunny day, and cheer a gloomy one, though they 
fail to fill our store-house. I cannot think that 
extraordinary excellence in any accomplishment 
is worth the price of its attainment, or even 
desirable in itself, if it amounts to distinction; 
but only so much as contributes to the mutual 
enjoyment of social and domestic life, accord- 
ing to our natural gifts and providential oppor- 
tunities of improving them. Never can their 
value, or even the more intrinsic value of solid 
instruction, give a countenance to the ambitious 
struggle after advantages which Providence has 
denied; the proud determination of those who 
have not the means, to keep pace with those 
who have, in this day so ruinously prevalent; 
ruinous in expenses, anxiously provided for; 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 213 

in time that ought to be otherwise devoted; in 
health, of which the loss embitters and inca- 
pacitates the remainder of existence. 

A very few words with reference to the re- 
ligious education of women in this country. It 
is a home religion that we want; it is an influ- 
ential, not a talking one; it is a quiet, not a 
bustling one. Argument, criticism, contro- 
versy, gifts of prayer, fluency of speech, zeal 
in the shock of parties, are public demonstra- 
tions of religion, required of some, but not 
required of us. A female's piety should be no 
wandering star, shooting hither and thither to 
be visible far off. It should be as a lamp fixed 
in its own place, shedding, to a certain distance, 
its steady equal light, but brightest always to 
those that are the nearest. 



PART III. 

WITH REFERENCE TO THE POSITION OF FEMALES IN THEIR 
DIFFERENT STATIONS OF LIFE. 

It has been said by one reputed wise, that " in 
much wisdom is much grief; and he that in- 
creaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." Solo- 
mon knew what he spake of; heavenly wisdom 
and the knowledge of God were not in his 
mind when he said this; of all other learning 
he had made sufficient experience to know 
what it is worth, and here is his conclusion — 
" This also is vanity." Others, less enlightened 
than the king of Israel, in what concerns the 
happiness of mankind, but deeply experienced 
in their misery, have borne testimony to the 
same truth, exhibiting in their profligate and 
wretched lives, the mournful confirmation of 
their own saying, 

" They who know the most, 

Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, 

The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life." 

In contradiction to these authorities, and to 



ON FFMALE EDUCATION. 215 

all past experience, mankind seem now to 
think that knowledge is the universal remedy 
of ill, the fundamental good, the harbinger of 
perfection. Of a thing so valuable, it follows 
of course that nobody can have too much, and 
nobody can sit down to count the cost; it is 
equally good for all, and we must, if necessary, 
sell all that we have, to buy it. Is not this in 
action, or in language variously modified, the 
prevalent opinion in this country at the present 
time? What may be the political result of a 
people too wise for subordination, too much 
enlightened for subjection, and too free to be 
controlled by God or man; and whether it is 
we, or our children, who must abide the issue, 
it is not our occasion to consider. We cannot 
stay the current, nor oppose in the aggregate 
its dangerous force. We can only, each one in 
his own small sphere, use such measures of in- 
fluence as we have, to give warning of the dan- 
ger, and bend opinion to a safer course. We 
shall confine ourselves to our subject, however 
some of our remarks may be applicable beyond 
our limit. 

We have come to place learning on a different 
ground from every other earthly good; but 
there is really no difference in their nature. 
Wealth is good and power is good, and every 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

other endowment good, as far as it is given of 
God, and by him blessed to a just and righteous 
use. But we agree, Christians at least agree, 
that ambition is a sin, and covetousness is a sin, 
and too restless a desire, or too earnest a pursuit 
of any earthly good, is universally admitted to 
be contrary to godliness. Why is knowledge 
exempted from this conclusion? It is an earthly 
good, excellent when God sanctifies and blesses 
it, most dangerous when he does not; and I 
am sure that they who will be wise, irrespective 
of His will, do compass themselves about with 
full as many sorrows as they that will be rich. 
It is only another character of ambition: the 
desire to be uppermost. Why then does the 
Christian mother, who would be ashamed to say 
or to feel that she covets rank, or riches, or 
beauty for her girls, think there is no effort and 
no sacrifice she ought not to make to have them 
clever and accomplished? Do you mean to 
say, perhaps the mother answers me, that 
knowledge is of no more value than beauty and 
riches? I mean to say, that however the golden 
sovereign may exceed in value the silver six- 
pence, you are no more at liberty to covet the 
one than the other, nor to procure it by unrigh- 
teous means. Costly instruction is no more 
necessary to our children than costly clothing, 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 217 

however much more desirable. It is not be- 
cause one earthly good exceeds another in value, 
that we are to insist on having it in spite of that 
Providence which has denied the means; or 
under the plea of necessity, to make a sacrifice 
of principle in order to obtain it. Yet I am 
afraid that in the present day this is done, it 
may be inconsiderately, to a very great extent. 
I have alluded before to the practice of sending 
girls to the continent for education, under pre- 
text of its being so much cheaper than in Eng- 
land. I hear the same reason given for subject- 
ing them to the contamination of indiscriminate 
mixture, or for any plan of innovation upon the 
habits and proprieties of domestic life, which 
economy can devise, to procure at a lower cost 
what is not properly within the parents' means. 
I feel so sure that this is wrong in principle, and 
in practice adverse to the will of God, that while 
economy is J admitted to be a sufficient reason 
for choosing between two modes of education 
equally unobjectionable, I believe it can never 
be a reason for exposing a child to the risk of 
moral or spiritual injury, or of any thing that 
may injuriously affect her happiness and useful- 
ness in her own station. Whatever is to be 
attained by such economy, had better be dis- 
pensed with altogether. What God requires 
20 



218 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

in our children, he will give us the means of 
procuring without any sacrifice of principle; 
what the world and its fashions may require, 
the Christian parent at least has nothing to do 
with. It is a mistake to suppose that our tem- 
poral and spiritual welfare is at variance; it 
may seem so, but it cannot be. 

Learning and education are not the same 
thing; if they were, the greatest degree of 
acquired knowledge would constitute the best 
education; whereas, in fact, a learned and 
expensive education often proves a very bad 
one: while some, with a very small fund of 
knowledge acquired, have been excellently well 
educated for the station they fill. I think it 
may be the want of distinctness in our percep- 
tion of this difference, that has led to the sup- 
position that too much cannot be taught to 
children in any station of life; that what im- 
proves the character of the rich, must necessarily 
be improving to the character of the poor; that 
increase of knowledge must invariably, and to 
whatever degree, be an increased means of hap- 
piness to the possessor, and of benefit to the 
society of which he is a part. If, however, the 
just end and aim of education is to fit a woman 
for the destiny assigned her by the Almighty, 
only so much instruction should be imparted as 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 219 

is calculated to increase her usefulness and hap- 
piness in her probable sphere of life, varying in 
every different gradation of society: her educa- 
tion ought not to be that which will make her 
aspire beyond it, or feel uncomfortable in it. 
This is, I think, the great error we have been 
committing, and are committing from one end 
of society to the other. We talk of raising the 
character of the people by education, but we 
do not distinguish between raising the moral 
and raising the intellectual character; yet they 
have no necessary connection. The most vicious 
men that have existed have been the most intel- 
ligent and accomplished. Even if by improving 
the faculties of an individual you could insure 
a proportionate elevation in his station, which 
you cannot, you have not necessarily made him 
a better or a happier man. He is a better and 
a happier man than his neighbor, who is fitter 
for his condition, and more contented in it; not 
he who is in station higher. The gradations of 
society are of God's appointment, and by no 
means proofs of his partiality. When the 
habits, feelings, and capacities, are on the same 
level with the condition, I have no doubt that 
the happiness of each class is pretty nearly 
equal in the aggregate, though perhaps not equal 
individually; and the individual inequality is 



220 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

as great between persons of the same class 
as between those of different classes. If then 
we aim by education to make a happier and 
a better people, I think it must be by making 
each one fitter for the station he is in, not by 
fitting him to rise. An aspiring people can 
never be a satisfied one; and an unsatisfied 
people can never be a happy one. I am aware 
that this is disputable ground; and many will 
dispute it: they will say, why not prepare our 
children to raise themselves to a higher condi- 
tion? — the highest in this country has been 
often attained by those who are born in the 
lowest. Perhaps facts would prove that such 
persons have risen by their own ^powers rather 
than by an education above their original cir- 
cumstances; but I mean to speak of female 
education exclusively, and therefore shall not 
contest the point with reference to boys. I am 
sure that with reference to girls no such specu- 
lation is admissible: the position of a girl in 
society is the place her parents occupy; it is 
not likely or desirable that she should change it. 
She may, by the act of Providence, be raised 
above it, and find her education deficient in her 
new station; or she may, by the same Provi- 
dence, sink below it, and then her cultivated 
feelings and habits will subject her to much 






ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 221 

suffering: but as such changes cannot be cal- 
culated in an unseen Providence, it is impossi- 
ble they can be wisely taken into account in a 
suitable education. 

When I have given this opinion, it will per- 
haps be anticipated that I object to much that 
is doing in gratuitous education. We cannot 
prohibit, we have no right to prohibit, the 
acquisition of knowledge by those who have 
the means and choose so to expend them: 
whatever we may think, we have no right to 
interfere; but the boon of charity we have a 
right to limit to our own sense of its utility. 
Against the aspiring current of the present day, 
I own myself of opinion that beside religious 
instruction, reading and writing for boys, and 
reading and needle-work for girls, is all that 
charity can advantageously bestow; because, 
for the quite lowest class, which the demaud on 
charity supposes, I believe it to be all that is 
really desirable: of course, I do not refer to 
institutions expressly designed for higher classes. 
The females of our charity schools, whose almost 
universal destination is that of domestic ser- 
vants, or wives of day-laborers, or to daily 
labor for themselves, will not be the happier or 
the better for more instruction. The addition 
of writing is perhaps of little consequence either 
20* 



222 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

way; but the taste for books likely to be ac- 
quired by more extended cultivation, I consider 
to be a real evil. The only reading such a 
female wants is her Bible daily, if she will make 
time for it; and some religions books for her 
Sunday leisure. In the week her needle is the 
natural and useful occupation of such leisure 
hours as she has; there is no one of the above 
positions in which, for herself or her family, a 
woman does not want more time for her needle 
than she can command, to answer the demands 
of neatness and economy. This occupation will 
be the relaxation she chooses from severer 
labor, if no other taste has been artificially 
excited: but if a taste for reading has been 
induced, it must either remain an unsatisfied 
desire, which is no friend to happiness or be 
indulged at the cost of something which she has 
not to spare. 

As we advance a little higher, we should wish 
the sphere of thought enlarged; because where- 
ever there is leisure, there will be mischief to 
occupy it, if there is not good. The woman who 
has time to visit, and time to gossip, and time 
to enjoy her family without incessant working 
for them, has time to read ; and the love of 
reading, which comes by cultivation, will greatly 
tend to withhold her from idle and pernicious 






ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 223 

pleasures, from low habits and erroneous feel- 
ings. As much plain English learning as a 
father in this situation can afford to give his 
daughter, without extravagance or interference 
with their domestic duties, cannot, I think, but 
render them more respectable, nor is likely to 
unfit them for the shop, or any other probable 
destination. The folly that has gone beyond 
this, attempting to add accomplishments, so 
called, to Useful instruction, and bring into this 
sphere a little bad music and imaginary French, 
far enough from the real language, and whatever 
else a vulgar boarding-school affects to supply of 
polite education, is simply pernicious, without 
the possibility of good ; and has been productive 
of evils little contemplated by the well-meaning 
but probably ignorant parent, whose vanity is 
thus imposed upon by the semblance of acquisi- 
tions which cannot possibly be made, and would 
be of no uge if they could; while the minds of 
their children are as really uninformed and un- 
cultivated, as if no education had been given 
them . The girls in a free school would in all 
real knowledge put to shame the young ladies 
whose teaching has been paid for at these low 
seminaries of polite learning. 

But our readers of this class may take com- 
fort, they have not been alone in their mistake. 



224 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

The old school system is expiring fast. We 
need not despair to see the end of the conven- 
tional imposition, by which a parent had done 
his duty to wards his children when he had paid 
an exorbitant bill; and the governess had done 
her duty when she had received them, not to 
her own care, but to that of uninterested, 
irresponsible, and for the most part incompetent 
teachers: when it was enough for the mother 
that she saw her daughters twice a year, reple- 
nished with drawings that they never drew, and 
compositions that their masters wrote; tasks 
surreptitiously performed, and lessons never 
understood: and enough for the governess that 
she visited the school-room once a day, went 
through the form of hearing a prepared lesson, 
or perhaps witnessed the silent performance of 
the dinner; and left them twenty-two hours out 
of every twenty-four to corrupt each other as 
they might. The increasing good sense of the 
community, I am happy to believe, is fast put- 
ting an end to this monstrous fiction. Small 
schools, of which the responsible governess is 
the real instructor and watchful companion of 
her pupils, have almost superseded these larger 
ones among the richer classes. Happy will be 
the generation in which the last expires; and 
parents less affluent will be wiser if in this re- 






ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 225 

spect they follow the example of the richer, 
though it should be at the sacrifice of much 
which they now think it necessary their daugh- 
ters should learn, and perhaps cannot afford 
them in any other manner. 

In the range of society, in this country so 
wide and diversified, in which females, however 
different in rank, are entitled to be considered 
gentlewomen, I cannot perceive any distinction 
required, but that of the individual difference 
of fortune. What is good for one is good for 
another, provided it be proportionate to the 
means of obtaining it, which cannot be mea- 
sured by rank. The bad education of the female 
nobility and women of fashion has been not 
their privilege but their misfortune; they will 
be better and happier, and fitter for the duties 
of their high station, in proportion as it approxi- 
mates to that which is beneficially given to 
private gentlewomen in middle life. To all of 
these I have before remarked, that I cannot 
suppose any measure of instruction to be inju- 
rious, if it be not injuriously obtained. I can- 
not imagine a lady to know too much, if it be 
not, as the poet speaks of our first parents, 

" Knowledge of good, bought dear, by knowing ill." 



PART IV 



WITH REFFERENCE TO THEIR NATURAL CONDITION AND ETERNAL 
DESTINY. 



It was observed, at the commencement of these 
remarks, that the education of women should 
be ordered with relation to their destinies, to 
the manifest designs of the Creator for them, 
and the qualifications with which they are en- 
dowed. We have spoken with reference to 
their general, national, and individual destinies 
in this life. But the deepest consideration is 
to come. If early education is a preparation 
for life, life itself is but a preparation and an 
education for eternity. If this be not con- 
sidered, our utmost success will be a miserable 
failure. We may, indeed, succeed; we may 
make our daughters brillant and amiable, and 
if adversity try them not, happy for a season: 
we may see them fulfil the duties of their sta- 
tion, and walk gracefully amid the love and 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 227 

smiles of all around them; yet education will 
fail of its highest end, the accomplishment of 
the designs of God for the happiness of his 
creatures; our means will be wasted, and our 
labor lost; "For this shall ye have at my 
hand, saith the Lord, ye shall lie down in 
sorrow." Not that there is any difference 
between the real interests of time and eternity: 
one happiness for the way, and another for the 
end; one supreme good now, another hereafter. 
But there are two ways and two ends: different; 
contrasted: what fits us for the one does 
not fit us for the other, nor is calculated 
to lead us to it. Herein, I consider, is the 
difficulty of all general treatises upon the sub- 
ject of education. We must make a separation 
at the outset; we must say to the children of 
this world, " that is the way to the attainment 
of your object;" to the Christian parent, "it 
is not the way to yours." When the workman 
prepares to work, he considers how long his 
faerie is to last; whether his ornaments and 
coloring are to abide the day-light, or be only 
the embellishments of a festive night. A uni- 
versal war has been indeed proclaimed against 
distinctions, by the name of prejudice; a plan 
of national education has been devised to com- 
prehend the light of protestantism and the 



228 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

darkness of popery, and may be made to em- 
brace the churchman and the dissenter, the 
friends and enemies of Christ among both. The 
time may be come, when the wise and the ig- 
norant are to divide the legislation, and he who 
has ten talents is to commit five of them to the 
management of him who has bat one, for the 
better regulation of the world's aifairs: all 
land-marks may be removed, and earthly dis- 
tinctions levelled: but one separation will re- 
main, one distinction stands for ever, though 
Satan spares no effort to efface it; the narrow 
way that leadeth to life, and the broad way 
that leadeth to destruction, will be as separate 
as ever. The time will never come when the 
votaries of time and sense, walking after the 
course of this world, can be prepared for it by 
exactly the same education as befits the children 
of godliness, walking not after the flesh, but 
after the spirit. 

What must we do, then? Must we not dis- 
miss one party from the scene, and say to the 
mother who has no care for any thing but her 
daughter's success and happiness in this life, 
« The world requires that they who pursue its 
pleasures should be able to give those pleasures 
zest, and they who pursue its honors wear 
them becomingly. The world will not put the 






ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 229 

crown upon the head of one who will not strive 
for the mastery, after its own manner. Your 
children must be bred in exact conformity with 
its opinions, and early accustomed to its fashions, 
or they will not be found acceptable in its gay 
and polished circles. They must be prepared 
to enter the lists with spirit and emulation, or 
they will never carry off the prizes. The 
world does not like humility, shame-facedness 
and sobriety, the gospel ornaments of a meek 
and quiet spirit. The world does not want 
to be suspected in its principles, questioned in 
its opinions, or despised in its vanities, by the 
young aspirants for its favor. In education 
above all things it may be said, " Choose ye 
whom ye will serve;" for neither master will 
give his wages to another's servant. 

We need scarcely say how different is the 
position of the pious parent, and the hoped- 
for, and prayed-for, destiny of his children, 
sons and daughters of the most high God, but 
strangers and pilgrims upon earth, with no 
abiding city here, but seeking a country, even 
a heavenly. Their destiny there, and their 
position now, are the considerations by which 
all plans of education must be directed; how 
they may be fitted for their pilgrimage, and 
prepared to take their place in the Redeemer's 
21 



230 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

kingdom. The parent may not shrink from 
this strong ground, and taking shelter under 
the supremacy of the Divine will, plead the 
uncertainty of their children's destination. It 
is uncertain; our children may not choose 
Christ, and Christ may not choose them, and 
they may have their portion in this life, our choice 
notwithstanding; but we must make a choice; 
for so only shall we have honestly performed 
our part, and so only may hope a blessing on 
the consistent acting of our faith. It will per- 
haps be said to us, as to one of old, "As 
thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee; 
and his daughter was made whole from that 
very hour." 

There are many, very many things, a stranger 
and a pilgrim does not want, however necessary 
to those that are at home; and there is much 
that is admired and highly thought of here, 
which in that far kingdom will not be in fashion. 
I am far from saying, that religious parents are 
not considerate of this, and do not, to a con- 
siderable extent, act upon it in the education of 
their girls; but I think a clear, accurate, and 
decisive perception of this truth, would settle 
many doubts, and put an end to disputed prac- 
tices, and remove difficulties out of the way 
of the scrupulous and conscientious mother. 






ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 231 

It seems to be the peculiar device of Satan, at 
the present day, to discredit the detachment of 
believers from the world: to persuade them that 
the law is obsolete, and that they may now enter 
into competition, and take possession in the name 
of the Lord. We hear of a religious party in 
every field of contention, and if we may judge 
from the sounds which reach us of the strife, 
their weapons are not confined to the sword of 
the spirit, or the shield of faith. The tempter 
says, the honor of religion is at stake; our 
children must not come short of any thing the 
world admires, lest it be imputed to religion; 
there must be nothing seen in them that the 
world dislikes, lest it excite a prejudice against 
religion. I never hear such language, or make 
use of it, without feeling what an unscriptural 
sound it has. No doubt it is applicable some- 
times; but only so far as the apostle's words 
will bear it out; "Brethren, whatsoever things 
are true, whatsoever things are honest, what- 
soever things are just, whatsoever things are 
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
things are of good report; if there be any 
virtue, and if there be any praise, think on 
these things." Where could the Christian 
mother find so beautiful a compendium of all 
that is desirable to cultivate in her children; 



232 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

and yet they would be much abridged of this 
world's fashions and opinions, in which are 
things not true, not honest, not just, or pure; 
and if they be lovely, and of good report, it is in 
the praise of men, and not of God. 

I have said that there is no difference between 
the real interests of time and eternity — God 
has not appointed one happiness for the way 
and another for the end; one supreme good 
now and another hereafter. The consumma- 
tion of a woman's happiness and the perfection 
of her character, is that she be one with Christ 
in all things." "To be with him and to be like 
him." In proportion as she advances towards 
this end, she will be in this life happy and 
useful and lovely. In the pursuit of it not 
one innocent gratification, suited to our con- 
dition here, nor any enjoyment of what Al- 
mighty goodness has provided for our earthly 
state, need be relinquished: no mental powers 
need be suppressed, nor social charm put off: 
else would God's work and his design be at 
variance: his works and his word would not 
agree. He has sent us on a journey, and pro- 
vided us with all things desirable for the way: 
if we do not forget or mistake the destined end, 
we shall not find our outfit deficient or super- 
fluous; we need not divert it from its uses, or 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 233 

get rid of it as an incumbrance. The period 
of education is no inconsiderable portion of 
this journey, with the additional importance 
that it must greatly influence the remainder. 
How indispensable then that no step be taken 
in it without a distinct reference to the final 
destination of our children. In this division of 
the subject, we need make no distinction be- 
tween rich and poor; there is one rule for all: 
whatever tends to the increase of vital godli- 
ness, and the renewal of the divine image in 
the soul, is to be cultivated: whatever is op- 
posed to the one, or tends to the effacing of the 
other, is to be relinquished. 

We have but one more remark. The builder, 
before he begins his edifice, must well consider 
the material he has to build with; or only de- 
feat and disappointment will ensue. Perhaps 
the greatest failures in education have origi- 
nated in this: that men do not consider what 
their children are. We make up our minds 
what we would have them be; perhaps we con- 
sider what God requires they should be; and 
we leave out of the account what they are: 
portions of a corrupted mass: seed of a lost 
progenitor: born in iniquity and conceived in 
sin, by nature prone to every evil way, but to all 
good things adverse: dead — born dead every 
21* 



234 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

one of them spiritually; and morally sick unto 
death. If this is true, how many systems of 
education must be dismissed at the outset, as 
inapplicable to our purpose: because they treat 
of childhood either as a pure blank leaf, on 
which it is as easy to make one impression as 
another, or as a balance so equally poised be- 
tween good and evil principles, that we have only 
to throw our weight into the right scale. How 
unlike to the reality! Every parent, and every 
one who in education supplies a parent's place, 
is in fact a physician and a nurse; the whole 
head is sick, and the whole heart is faint; our 
children are like ourselves, there is no health 
in them. From the first dawn of reason there 
is inbred sin to contend against, which only 
waits the development of the organs to mani- 
fest itself in opposition to our efforts. The 
ground is pre-occupied; the soil is full of 
weeds, and they are more free to grow than any 
thing we plant; the climate suits them, and our 
very culture helps to make them flourish. In 
this is our real difficulty, and if this be not taken 
into the account, we shall till the soil in vain. 
And this is not all. Besides the inborn seeds of 
moral sickness, there is pestilence in the atmos- 
phere; there is contagion every where around 
them, with every predisposition in themselves to 



ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 235 

be infected. And further still than this, they are 
the born servants of a master, who will urge his 
claim every hour of their existence, and spare 
nothing to retain them in his service. 

It is no encouraging picture of the task of 
education; and if we mean to pursue it without 
divine assistance, it may well leave us hopeless. 
A full measure of help is offered us, if we will 
observe the terms, and an ample promise of 
success, if the conditions on our part be ful- 
filled; but if we shut our eyes to the fact, and, 
refusing the Scripture testimony of the nature of 
man, build a system of education upon reason 
and philosophy, and mere moral suasion, irre- 
spective of these painful circumstances, two evils 
must, as they are seen to do, continually result: 
we shall expect more than is reasonable; and we 
shall effect less than might be effected. 

We do often expect of children more than is 
reasonable; we require of the sick, the vigorous 
action of health; we expect the symptoms to 
disappear while the disease remains; we mould 
our clay, and give it form and coloring, and 
wonder after all to find that it is but clay — easily 
marred, and very little worth with all our pains. 
Few people are patient enough, considerate 
enough, moderate enough, in their expectation 
and management of youth. But while presump- 



236 ON FEMALE EDUCATION. 

tion on the one hand makes us unreasonable, 
the same presumption on the other hand makes 
us careless. We give them, sick to death, the 
regimen of health; we expose them in their 
feebleness to the most pernicious influences, 
allow them to choose for themselves, and judge 
for themselves, as if there were no bias in their 
nature towards the wrong. Thus again we 
mistake our base clay for the firm and solid 
marble, and take no care to shelter and protect 
it from whatever tends to spoil our work, and 
destroy our perishable material. So many 
things are unsafe and injurious to man as a sin- 
ner; to the heart deceitful, to the taste pre verted, 
to the nature fallen and corrupt, which to an 
innocent and righteous being would be innoxi- 
ous, that it is most indispensable that we certify 
ourselves at the outset, of the condition of our 
children, as they come by nature to our hands. 
Much has been written, and much has been 
done, irrespective of this consideration; but it 
is surely not too much to say, that every step so 
taken, must be taken amiss, or at a most hazard- 
ous venture. We leave to the consideration of 
parents these few slight suggestions, which to 
carry out would require a volume. 



THE TIMES 



WHAT IS MEANT BY THE TIMESf 

Among the most distant recollections of my 
childhood, are the complaints I used to hear 
continually of "The Times;" and I well re- 
member the impression upon my mind, without 
understanding it, was, that there never had 
been a time so fearful and calamitous as that in 
which we had the misfortune to be living. 
Often have I sat and listened to the conversa- 
tion of my parents or my nurse, and heard them 
tell of the good old Times when every thing had 
been prosperous, (I could never distinctly learn 
when it was) and bread had been a shilling the 
quartern loaf — it was then eighteen-pence. 
Whatever was regretted was attributed to the 
badness of the times: whatever seemed desira- 



238 THE TIMES, 

ble, was to be hoped for when the times should 
be better. Anarchy, starvation, but more par- 
ticularly invasion, were the terrific images that 
filled my childish imagination, while listening 
to such conversation. And they filled, I believe, 
much older imaginations than mine, possibly 
not without reason: I only revert to it to show 
that men have at all periods been in the habit 
of complaining of the Times in which they have 
happened to live, as if they were worse than any 
other. Those of which I am speaking, were a 
perfect contrast to the present. Taxes were 
yearly increasing: the price of every thing was 
enormously high: bread, as I have observed, 
was eighteen-pence the quartern. A long war 
had occasioned so much excitement and activity, 
that every body was employed; many were 
growing excessively rich; and the greater num- 
ber were raising their families to a higher sta- 
tion than that to which they had been born. 
Yet they were dreadful Times; so I heard it 
said: the people thought they were oppressed 
and ill-governed, and were dissatisfied — in 
short, "the French were coming," as it was com- 
monly said, that the nation was on the point of 
bankruptcy and ruin. Many an old woman I 
remember, who buried a bag of gold, to save 
her from starving when the Bank of England 



THE TIMES. 239 

should stop payment. All is now reversed; 
peace has succeeded to war; the quartern loaf 
has fallen much below the shilling; the value 
of every thing is diminished; occupation is 
hard to be procured, and money harder still: 
and of the many who grew so rapidly rich, 
numbers have sunk, or are gradually sinking to 
the level of their fore-fathers. But change 
what may, the Times are as bad as ever: still 
the very worst that ever have been known. And 
the records of history confirm the records of 
memory; for every one who has written the 
memoirs of his own Times, has invariably called 
them bad Times. 

Now what is really meant by this? What is 
meant by " The Times?" for I am sure the 
word is used every day in the hearing of our 
readers, whether they be young or old; perhaps 
they use it frequently themselves, and most 
probably attach some painful idea to it: for I 
never heard it coupled with an expression of 
thankfulness and contentment. We all read 
newspapers, and we all talk politics: but we 
talk, even Christians talk— I wish they did not 
— as if God had given up the reins of govern- 
ment, and left his people at the mercy of the 
world. Sure I am, that those who speak to or 
before the rising generation, should be very 



240 THE TIMES. 

careful of their language on this subject; ex- 
changing the bitterness of complaint, arid the 
irritation of party feelings, for the calm language 
of a grateful and confiding spirit, that knows 
who is over all. The people err and commit 
wickedness: kings transgress and ministers do 
wrong: and misery follows upon sin. It be- 
comes us to mourn for them, as we must suffer 
with them. But it does not become the people 
of God to be irritated and desponding about 
public affairs, as if they did not know that "all 
things," even the mistakes of the ungodly and 
the devices of Satan, "work together for good to 
them that love God." 

The Scripture says that the times' and 
seasons are with the Lord. Now it seems very 
extraordinary that what omnipotent goodness 
overrules, should be always so very bad. Let 
us seriously consider what is meant by it. Time, 
as distinguished from eternity, and as regards 
mankind, begins in Paradise, and ends at the 
resurrection of the dead; that moment at which 
St. John, in the apocalypse, heard one swear 
that "time should be no longer." This period, 
divided into successive ages and generations of 
men, each characterised by some things peculiar 
to itself, and some peculiar interferences of 
divine providence, comprehends the " Times" 



THE TIMES. 241 

that men have had to do with. When it began, 
they were good, no doubt; for all was good 
that Almighty goodness had ordained. After 
the fall, the Times were changed indeed, but it 
was not that God was changed, or that what he 
ordained could ever be otherwise than good. 
It was owing to God's goodness that Time con- 
tinued to be at all: that he did not destroy the 
world, and put an end to it at once. It was 
continued for no other purpose, but to redeem 
from sin and death, those who will repent and 
return to God, by faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ. This is true in general; the world's 
sentence was reprieved: the' execution was 
delayed: and the season of grace that inter- 
venes, is the interval that we call " Time." With 
respect to individuals, from the least to the 
greatest, the years that we live upon the earth, 
which is what we call " Our own Times," is the 
interval that God mercifully grants us, to seek 
forgiveness and reconciliation with Him, to love 
and serve Him here, that we may be prepared 
. to dwell with him in heaven. 

Whatever men in common talk may mean, 
this is the real meaning of "the Times" — of 
" our own Times." It is of God's goodness that 
we have any, and his design in it is good; if the 
Times are not good to us, it can only be because 
22 



242 THE TIMES. 






they do not serve the purpose He intends. If 
the use of life was to grow rich, then there would 
be "bad Times," whenever we grew poor. If 
the use of life was to enjoy ourselves a little 
while and die, then there would be "bad Times," 
whenever difficulties and troubles overtake us. 
But if it be true that life is given us, and has 
no other use and purpose, but to find and follow 
after everlasting happiness, then, before we 
pronounce them to be good or evil, and more 
particularly before we are heard to complain of 
them, we ought to examine how far they are 
favorable or otherwise to the attainment of 
this purpose; which alone can make them good 
or bad to us. 



II 



WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THE TIMES.'' 

No person of reflection can pass through the 
metropolis and its suburbs in the dusk of ap- 
proaching night, without being struck with the 
air of confidence and security with which the 
crowds that throng the streets seem to be pur- 
suing, each one his own purpose, fearless of all 
around him. Amongst hundreds of careless, 
cheerful countenances, you perceive a few 
poverty-stricken, miserable wretches, whom 
vice generally, perhaps always, has made painful 
to look upon. But even these pass unmolested, 
and are certain of protection if they need it. 
Yet of all this clothed, and fed, and protected 
multitude, not one but, if you asked them, 
would tell you that " the Times are bad." Follow 
the different classes to their homes — I do not say 
you will find no wretchedness there; but you 



244 THE TIMES. 



will find much with which " the Times" have 
little enough to do. There never was a time 
and never will be, through all eternity, in which 
vice does not produce misery: they seldom part 
company at all, and never long. The idle and 
dissolute must be put out of the question, be- 
fore we form an estimate of the Times; for all 
periods are alike to them. Still there will be 
found some in the lowest class, who, without 
their own faults, are suffering the pressure of 
poverty, and unable to live by the willing labor 
of their hands. This is an evil feature in our 
times; we must admit it: because though God 
has designed there should be rich and poor, and 
that the greater number should earn their bread 
in the sweat of their brow, it is not in the order 
of Providence that any one who will work shall 
not eat. It must therefore originate in a cor- 
rupt state of society. If we concede to these 
sufferers, who are but the few among the 
many, that they may in some sense say their 
Times are evil, we would remind them still that 
God's purpose in giving them time is not de- 
feated, and his purpose is as good towards them 
as towards others. Life itself, and all the 
means with which it has hitherto been sup- 
ported, and all they have had in it since the 
day they were born, which, if little in compari- 



ve 



THE TIMES. 245 

son with others, is much compared with their 
deserts; all is granted by divine goodness to 
give them an opportunity of reaching eternal 
happiness. Their sufferings here, so far from 
preventing this, are rather favorable to it, by 
calling them to thoughtfulness and prayer; but 
these, after all, are the few, and by no means 
the loudest talkers about the Times: the many 
will be found to have not only food and rai- 
ment, which the Bible says should content a 
godly man, but many, how many things be- 
side! What unnecessary indulgences, what 
prodigality of comforts! We talk of the bliss 
of Paradise, but we forget that it consisted in 
the character of our first parents, and the 
friendship of God; they did not have, and did 
not want, the hundred thousand things we 
think it impossible to be happy without, and 
which God mercifully gives us, more or less, 
though not at all necessary to the purpose for 
which our Times are granted us. But follow 
home the crowd to their warm houses and 
wholesome tables, some to their splendid and 
luxurious ones; and before an hour has passed 
you will hear every one say, "the Times are bad." 
What then is really the matter with them? 
We have remarked that the dispensations of 
God have varied in different ages, though his 
22* 



246 THE TIMES. 

good purpose never changes; and all ages and 
generations have something in them peculiar 
to themselves. What then is particular in our 
Times to distinguish them from others? No 
one can doubt that men have more opportunity 
of knowing God, than they have ever had since 
Adam went out of Paradise. The word of 
God is read by more people than ever before 
possessed it, or could have read it if they had; 
and Ihere are more external helps to the right 
understanding of the Bible, than there ever 
were before. If asked what characterizes the 
present age, every one would readily answer, 
"intelligence, knowledge, education." Men talk 
boastfully of this, and would not like to hear 
it called a bad feature of the Times; yet they 
do not consider what alone can make it a good 
one, viz., that by enabling men to read and 
understand the word and the works of God, it 
is calculated to subserve the real purpose of 
existence, and bring us to the discovery of 
what, we live for. Looking upon the external 
aspect of things, every body must admit there 
never was a period when it was so easy to find 
out the way to heaven, and to follow it; in 
which so much opportunity, information, and 
encouragement, has been given to all ranks of 
people, to walk in the paths of salvation. This 



THE TIMES. 247 

to do, is the only use of time, and yet the Times 
are the worst that ever were known. 

Now if they are, which I do not believe, 
although I hear good people say it every day, 
who ought not to complain unwittingly — if 
they are bad, it is not because God's goodness 
has grown less, or his gifts diminished or our 
advantages been withdrawn. These have done 
nothing but increase, and I do not believe they 
were ever so great to any people, at any time, 
as to Great Britain in this generation. It is 
because we have done exactly what God warned 
the children of Israel not to do, when they 
were established in the good land whither they 
went in to possess it. In the first chapters of 
Deuteronomy, we shall find the whole history 
of "our Times:" "We have corrupted our- 
selves in the greatness of our abundance; we 
have eaten and. are full, and have built goodly 
houses, and. dwelt therein; and when our flocks 
and our herds multiplied, .and our silver and 
gold were multiplied, beyond what ever hap- 
pened to any nation, then our hearts were lifted 
up, and we forgat God." Every man that had 
more than his fathers, desired that his children 
should have more still. He did not ask it of 
God, because for shame he could not, and so he 
resolved to obtain it in spite of him. He de- 



248 THE TIMES. 

spised all those Gospel precepts that bade him 
not make haste to be rich; not to give his labor 
for that which satisfieth not; not to be cumbered 
with much serving, and troubled about many 
things. The more he had the more he wanted, 
and the more he disregarded the word of God 
respecting the value and the use of it. And now 
that God, worn out with the increase of our 
pride and worldly-mindness, has put a check 
upon the increase of our wealth, murmuring, 
repining, foreboding is heard from house to 
house, not because almost all of us have not still 
a great deal more than is necessary, perhaps 
more than is good for us, but because our habits 
and desires have almost universally exceeded 
the limits, which God in his goodness has de- 
signed to satisfy; and we cannot submit to see 
taken from us, what did not make us grateful 
or contented when we had it. 

This is what is the matter with the Times; 
but it is not all. I have alluded to the great 
increase of knowledge and education. A great 
deal of this world's good has always seemed to 
impede men's way to heaven, and our Saviour 
said it did so. But knowledge, understanding, 
— these might be expected to lead us to the 
right use of life, and make " our Times" so far 
good; but it has not. Men have grown proud 



THE TIMES. 249 

upon their knowledge, as well as upon their 
wealth. The more light God gives them to 
walk by, the more they think they can walk 
without his guidance. As soon as they are 
enabled to think for themselves, they begin to 
arrange the wisdom of his designs; and the first 
use that has been made of the increased moral 
power which men by cultivation have obtained, 
is to rebel against the whole arrangements of 
Providence, to refuse submission to every ordi- 
nance of God and man, and proclaim their in- 
dependence. These are the characteristics of 
"our Times" in general. We shall take occa- 
sion to apply them more particularly. 






Ill 



WHAT HAVE WE TO DO WITH THE TIMES ? 

" We cannot mend them — we had better mind 
our own business." I have heard it so said, but 
I am of a different opinion; nay, if we rightly 
knew ourselves, and estimated the designs of 
God in suffering us to be, we should perceive 
that we have really no other business; and that 
every hour is lost in which we allow the times 
to pass unnoticed. "0 ye hypocrites," said 
the gentle and forbearing Jesus, " ye can dis- 
cern the face of the sky, but can ye not discern 
the signs of the times?" Why does the mari- 
ner so intently watch every appearance in the 
clouds, every change |n the atmosphere, and 
color in the horizon? Because he has a given 
voyage to perform, and he hopes to reach his 
end in a given time; but his doing so mainly 
depends upon the weather, and his own skill in 
taking advantage of it. If he loiters till the 



THE TIMES. 251 

tide is turned, or loses a favorable wind: if 
he is unprepared for the squall when it arises, 
or misses his compass in a haze, he may strand 
his vessel on a foreign shore, or sink it in the 
deep. And why does the farmer think and 
talk so much about the weather, and rise up 
early to look at his weather-glass? because 
there is a time to reap and a time to sow; a 
time to plough and a time to harrow; it can 
only be done in certain states of the weather, 
and if the proper season passes, it cannot be 
done at all. Well may he be watchful of op- 
portunities, careful to catch every favorable 
moment. Does any body say the weather is 
no business of his? We are exactly in the 
same position with respect to the times in 
which we live. We have a distance to go, an 
end to attain, within a limited period. The 
particular circumstances under which we are to 
do it, constitute what are called the features or 
characters of our times, in Scripture language 
"the signs of the times." Favorable or ad- 
verse, dark or fair, it is in them and through 
them we must make our way; we know not 
what they will be to-morrow; we cannot wait 
for better, lest our time be out. Judge if we 
have much to do with it! if we have any need 
to trouble ourselves about it! 



252 THE TIMES. 

What an age of wisdom then it would seem 
we live in. Every body is occupied with this 
very thing. In castles and in cottages, in shops 
and ale-houses, in the very corners of the 
streets, every body is discussing the Times. No 
sailor ever consulted his log, no farmer his wea- 
ther-glass, with half the interest with which we 
read the newspapers; or any other papers, true 
or false, that bear on the important subject. 
The poor man suspends the earning of his bread 
to read pamphlets on the state of the nation; 
and the rich man neglects going to church to 
devise plans for its reform. The severe reproach 
of our blessed Lord will surely not apply to 
England, in the reign of William the Fourth. 

Whether, or by what means it may be in our 
power to amend the times, will be the subject 
of a future paper: my present object is to 
show how deeply we are interested in them; 
how vitally we may be affected by their changes? 
even fatally, if we disregard the signs: for the 
same wind that will bring the vessel home if 
directed rightly, will wreck it if steered amiss — 
yet no fault be in the wind. If we make ship- 
wreck, the fault is not in the times. God 
places none of us in circumstances in which we 
cannot fulfil the purpose of our existence, and 
reach the end appointed us. He sends no 



THE TIMES. 253 

temptation but he sends therewith a method of 
escape, and requires nothing of us that he does 
not offer us grace and strength to perform. In 
few words, and vulgar ones; asking pardon of 
the wisdom and learning of the age, our busi- 
ness is to see " which way the wind blows," 
that we may get safely home: and whether we 
be the pilot with the lives of others in our care, 
or the sea-boy with nothing at venture but our- 
selves, this is what we have to do with the 
Times. 

It is difficult, in general terms, to make a 
specific application of this truth, because every 
one's duties will differ with his different situa- 
tion in society; but it is manifest, that if pecu- 
liar advantages and peculiar dangers attend 
mankind in different ages and countries of the 
world, a particular direction should be given to 
our endeavors to resist or take advantage of 
them. But let us not forget, that in this, the 
great use of time as a preparation for eternity, 
contrary to the dictates of generosity in other 
matters, the .first thing to be done is " to take 
care of ourselves." The man who neglects the 
care of his own salvation to attend to the public 
welfare, or improve his neighborhood, or pro- 
mote the interests of society, will not have the 
praise of generosity or benevolence from God: 
23 



254 THE TIMES. 






for the Scripture gives no warrant for such self- 
sacrifice: it is for ourselves we are to seek first 
the kingdom of God. It is to this end, first, that 
all surrounding circumstances are to be made 
subservient, and in connection with it to be pri- 
marily contemplated. Next to this, the bearing 
of measures and events upon the spiritual in- 
terests of others, and the advantage that can be 
taken of them to promote it, should be our con- 
sideration. In saying this, I do not put aside 
the glory of God, because that upon earth is 
identified with the spiritual good of his people, 
and we can only promote it by advancing our- 
selves, and advancing others, in the way of his 
commandments. If these considerations were 
really first in our minds, I think it probable we 
should come to very different conclusions about 
the character of the times; and I am sure we 
should make a very different use of its pecu- 
liarities, be they good or bad. If what I have 
said in a former paper of those that mark the 
present day be true ? they claim the attention 
of every individual amongst us, for they form 
at once immense responsibilities and appalling 
dangers. It is indeed, as it is so often called, 
a crisis ! We are, perhaps, at the end of a 
prosperity by which we. have been inflated and 
corrupted — at the beginning of an adversity by 






THE TIMES. 255 

which we may, if grown wiser, be humbled and 
reclaimed. We are at the end of darkness and 
ignorance, in which men departed from God 
through carelessness and indifference; at the 
beginning of an age of universal information, in 
which those who despise him will do it know- 
ingly, and in defiance. Possibly, though still 
let us hope otherwise, we are at the end of his 
almighty patience, and* about to abide the com- 
mencement of his vengeance. We must see to 
it, each one according to our separate, position 
in society: I cannot make the application to 
individuals; but if it be true that all are sepa- 
rately concerned in marking the signs of the 
times, how peculiarly must they be so who take 
part in the education of children in the present 
day — to make use of the things that have taken 
place, and prepare them for those that seem 
likely to ensue. 

Their first care under these circumstances, it 
appears to me, should be to study the bearings 
of providence, with a view to meet rather than 
counteract them. 

When God is giving, is the time to teach 
our children how to use; when he is taking 
away — is the time to teach them how to do 
without. In an age of ignorance we have 
chiefly to supply the poor with knowledge suffi- 



256 THE TIMES. 

cient to direct their steps; but in an age like 
the present, when inquiry and information are 
so rife, our task is rather to give a right direc- 
tion to that which is supplied so freely: if it 
was formerly to lead the blind, so now it is to 
set up way-marks for them that see; for it will 
be in vain to bid them shut their eyes that we 
may guide them. In those things, on the con- 
trary, which respect the peculiar current of 
men's minds and opinions, at any given period, 
a counteracting influence in education is usually 
required; because run which way they will, 
their tendency is to err, if not restrained. It 
cannot be doubted that the current now is 
towards independence of opinion, insubordina- 
tion of conduct, intellectual assumption, spiri- 
tual licentiousness, and insubmission to autho- 
rity, divine and human. 



IV 



HOW CAN WE MEND THE TIMES.'' 

Not by complaining of them; — if that would 
do, we should have had a golden age in England 
long ago. If I were to decide what is the 
worst feature, the most fearful omen of the 
present day, I should say it is the universal 
spirit of complaint. Consider what it is. The 
times and seasons are with the Lord: by him 
kings reign: he setteth up one and putteth 
down another: he maketh poor and he maketh 
rich: rulers may err; and subjects may revolt; 
the measures of a government may be more or 
less wise: but nothing can defeat the purpose 
of the Most High. The nation or the indivi- 
dual whom he blesses must be blessed; they 
whom he blesses not must remain un blest for 
ever. The unwilling prophet's words are true 
of every people under heaven, as well as of the 
tribe of Israel, " How shall I bless whom God 
23* 



258 THE TIMES. 

has not blessed, or how shall I curse whom 
God has not cursed!" What does God him- 
self say? " I gave them a king in mine anger, 
and took him away in my wrath!" And 
what was the occasion of his anger? Their 
complaints, their ingratitude. Is it likely he 
should be propitiated by ours? I appeal to all 
those who acknowledge the sovereignty of God: 
— in Great Britain, they are a very large num- 
ber: a larger proportion of the population than 
would have saved the cities of the plains; and 
larger, perhaps, than did save Nineveh from 
foretold destruction, but not by complaints and 
gloomy anticipations. God has many reasons 
for being angry with this nation! but worst of 
all for its unthankfulness. We have been 
prospered and protected more than any people; 
during fifty years of disorder and bloodshed, we 
have dwelt in peace, each under our own vine 
and our own fig-tree. Fifty years! nay, it is 
many hundred since an enemy has reaped our 
fields, or lighted a fire upon our hearths. In 
spiritual things, mean time, our advantages 
have been so great, compared with other 
churches, that we may almost be said, like Israel 
in Egypt, to have had light in our dwellings 
while darkness was in all the land. What 
acknowledgments have been made of this, He 



THE TIMES. 259 

who has received them only knows; our thanks 
are reserved for His private ear, while our com- 
plainings are resounded through the country — 
but this ought not to be. God is offended and 
men are misled by it. What are the ignorant 
and irreligious to know of our grateful admira- 
tion of God's government, if they hear nothing 
from us but their own dissatisfied language? 
What are our servants to know, if as soon as 
we have said grace for the food upon our tables, 
they hear impatient murmuring about its price*, 
that it sells for too little or costs too much; 
that we cannot have all we used to have, or may 
soon be deprived of what we have? What are 
our children to know, if while we teach them 
that God is ruler over all, they learn from our 
conversation that all is going wrong? It has 
always been construed high treason to speak 
against a king, or use any language calculated 
to bring a government into contempt, because 
to do so, is to stimulate others to revolt and 
disaffection. Have not our complaints about 
the times the same tendency, of inciting to 
rebellion against the King of kings? If we 
would mend them, I should say that one thing 
to be done is to cease to offend God by com- 
plaining of them. 

But we must not deceive ourselves: he who 



260 THE TIMES. 

is not contented, cannot be grateful. If we 
are disquieted that God has taken from us 
twenty acres, we are not thankful that he has 
left us ten; if we covet a palace, we are not 
grateful for a cottage. It is an anomaly with 
which we may delude ourselves, but not God: 
and there is great need that as well as ceasing 
to complain of the Times, we learn to be con- 
tented with them: I am sure there is no more 
likely way to mend them. Fancy for a moment 
the whole people of England obeying the 
Scripture precept — "Be content with such 
things as ye have." Would not the strife, 
the peculation, the oppression cease; the pri- 
vation be without restlessness, and the dis- 
appointment without a sting? What happy 
days, in which all men could be content with 
much or little, with gain or loss! We cannot 
effect this as a whole; but we can each do 
something towards it; every additional con- 
tented one among her people, will make 
England a happier nation, and so far amend 
the Times. And to this point I would par- 
ticularly call the attention of those who take 
any part in education — especially the education 
of the people. Teach them contentedness. 
It has not been our way to do so. We have 
taught our children to be emulous, to be am- 



THE TIMES. 261 

bitious, to be aspiring; we have stimulated 
them with prospects of advancement, and made 
them ashamed of inferiority; and our example 
has proved to them the sincerity of our pre- 
cepts. We should take advantage of the 
change in the current of affairs, to alter the 
course of our influence and instructions; that 
while losing instead of gaining, sinking instead 
of rising, is the character of the day, the value 
of what remains, and the advantages that are 
continued, may become the predominant sub- 
ject of calculation. 

Another method to amend the Times, is, by 
removing the cause of our evils. I do not 
mean removing ministers, or dethroning kings — 
this remedy has been tried from the beginning 
of the world, and has been eminently unsuc- 
cessful, since things go on worse than ever — so 
it is said. Whoever be the instrument, the 
cause of national evil is the anger of God: we 
need but read the Bible history to be fully 
assured of this. The people sinned, and God 
allowed their rulers to do wrong: and then he 
visited the wrong upon the people. Whether 
our rulers act wisely or otherwise, we are not 
always so good judges as we think ourselves; 
but a mistake on this point would be of no con- 
sequence, if whenever we thought them wrongs 



262 THE TIEES. 

we received it as a mark of God's displeasure 
and proceeded to consider how we had pro- 
voked his anger, and how best we might ap- 
pease it. It would be encouraging to think 
when we heard Christians discussing the mea- 
sures of government, that such were the conclu- 
sions at which they desired to come; — that if 
they discovered the measures to be good, they 
meant to thank God for his guidance and bless- 
ing; and if they determined them to be bad, 
they meant to deprecate his anger by repentance 
and prayer. Political unions, on such grounds, 
would be an excellent instrument to mend the 
Times: and without a union, something may 
be done. The sins of a nation are but the 
aggregate of the sins of individuals, and indi- 
vidual repentance would make a penitent na- 
tion: beside, we can ask pardon and grace for 
others as well as for ourselves; and the effec- 
tual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth 
much. 

But all the things are secondary, affecting 
our temporal prosperity: we must refer to our 
first position, that times are only good or bad, 
in proportion as they serve the purpose for 
which all time is given: for which an interval 
has been made between the fall and the final 
judgment — the purpose of redemption, the op- 

R D - 8 3 * 



THE TIMES. 263 

portunity for repentance unto salvation. To 
make our days good, we have only to make 
them serve this end: if we are saved in them, 
they are good indeed to us: if many are saved 
in them, they are generally good: or if, while 
the saved are few, the opportunities and means 
are many, we have little excuse for complain- 
ing. 

The best of all ways therefore to amend the 
Times, is, to make better use of them for our 
own salvation, and for promoting the salvation 
of others. And if we were right in a former 
paper, respecting the peculiar character of the 
present age, as distinguished from former ones, 
making in both better and worse, better in its 
opportunities, worse in their mis-use, there is 
much in particular for those to do who have the 
care of education: and much occasion for all 
who have it in their power to take that care 
upon them, for the good of the rising race. 
Humanly speaking, every thing depends upon 
it. Knowledge, understanding, is the charac- 
teristic of the day: the direction given to that 
knowledge, the correctness of that understand- 
ing, will stamp the character of our Times: 
they will soon be indeed the best or the worst 
that ever were. If knowledge can be made 
subservient to religion, they will be blessed in- 



264 THE TIMES. 

creasingly: if not, vain will be the help of 
man, for God will not help a people that know- 
ingly reject Him, and choose to be independent 
of Him. Intellectual light has burst in upon 
us like a flood: prejudice, habit, influence, the 
restraints of the ignorant, are swept away; 
nothing but truth, divine truth and principle, 
can direct the torrent and render it innoxious. 
I own I apprehend less evil from these changes 
to our own Times, than to those of our chil- 
dren: — how very much under God, are theirs 
in the hands of those who are now teaching 
them ! 



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